Robinhood’s design won awards. Now, it’s the problem.

Mother Jones senior digital producer Mark Helenowski has used the Robinhood trading app since 2015, the year it launched. Like millions of others, he was drawn by the promise of commission-free trades and the lack of account minimums. Also, the design: It was approachable, simple, and fun: Clean-lined, with interactive animations, a modern color palette, and punctuated, at the time, with colorful confetti explosions.

But that award-winning design is part of the reason critics are slamming Robinhood. The company has been on something of a rollercoaster over the past year. In January, the company halted trading on Gamestop stock after it was driven to stratospheric levels by online investors, resulting in headline-grabbing public backlash and a Congressional inquiry. It’s been hit with record-breaking fines from regulatory bodies. In late August, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler announced that a ban targeting a controversial practice called “payment for order flow”, which nets Robinhood a majority of its revenues, is “on the table.” Another SEC announcement signaled an investigation into “digital engagement practices” on trading platforms, to include elements like “behavioral prompts, differential marketing, [and] game-like features.”

Helenowski partnered with Mother Jones reporter Hannah Levintova to interview digital and psychology experts about those tactics and tools, learning how they take advantage of the way brains tick to encourage users to trade more. Drawing on her previous reporting, Levintova explains how company profit motives seem to guide its user experience and app design.

Robinhood removed confetti from the app earlier this year, along with other design features that evoked gambling or games of chance, like scratch-off tickets. But as the SEC, lawmakers, and other regulators bear down on Robinhood, it’s facing tough questions. The confetti may be gone. But its critics are not.

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And for Hannah Levintova’s deep reporting on the suicide of Alex Kearns, a young Robinhood trader, and how the app turns young and inexperienced investors into Wall Street profits, visit

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