How can we create a web app that fits into the overall advisor workflow and helps them build trust and personability with their clients?
My role:
Discovery and exploratory research
UX design (end-to-end)
Usability test
Discovery phase
Started with stakeholder interviews and 1:1 interviews with advisors to understand their day-to-day workflow. A follow up survey was sent out to quantify common behaviour and pain points for financial advisors.
Financial advisors are the main user
Daily Tasks:
Research, compare and build portfolios
Provide insights, recommendations, and cross/up-sell opportunities
Create customized reports to build customer trust
Key pain points:
Three column layout hinders ability to quickly evaluate
Limited filter categories creates friction during detailed searches
80% of advisors stated fund comparison is important
No Responsive framework
Lacks the ability to create custom reports
Feature prioritization based on survey results:
Research: search, view, compare and analyze funds and portfolios using the latest market data.
Build: Advisors build and save portfolio for any investor profile
Compare: Compare investments and portfolios on one screen
Share: Create and share customized reports with clients
Due to time constraints, low fidelity designs were replaced with paper sketches and got started on high fidelity design to prepare for concept tests
Usability test
First round of design was tested with a private group of users to assess usability and gain a general understanding of how the tool meets the needs of the advisors.
A group of 7 users participated in 1:1 in-person interviews. The users were given 6 task-based scenarios to complete. At the end of the session, each participant completed a SUS survey. Based on the user feedback, designs were updated focusing on improving findability and navigation labels.
Top areas to be improved were:
Dashboard navigation
Placement of CTAs
Information groupings
Iterations and final design
Dashboard findings:
Users felt the current visual and content hierarchy led them to scroll past useful information.
Users were confused by the similarly named dashboard titles and the main left-hand menu.
Design solution:
Advisors were more interested in detailed data of their customer’s investments. The average section was removed to bring the detailed breakdown above the fold.
The side navigation was adjusted to action verbs to make it action-oriented.
Report Creation findings:
Creating outputs and sending them to clients is a major part of the advisors’ daily workflow. In a few scenarios, it was not immediately clear to a user how to create a report.
Users felt they did not receive enough feedback to acknowledge report was created.
After a report was created, the user had to go to the dashboard to see saved reports. Most users missed the indicator pointing to the dashboard.
Design solution:
Immediate confirmations were added to left navigation.
Introduced a small animation when a report was created.
The result
The clients were extremely satisfied with the delivery in terms of work and scale. Since going live in July 2018, within the first two weeks of the release, we gained 1496 registrations.