Client Reporting Platform

Not only does the tool need to work for our advisers, but it also has to work if customers wish to self service use it. Customers needs were very different to advisers despite similar goals, and an emphasis on clean, visual heavy design became apparent as it reduced cognitive load and the intimadation of engaging with financial planning.

Exported report

A consequency of the lean MVP was we had to launch with our most basic report design. Immediatly via our continuous research and business development partners, we received an influx of feedback that the report output was a letdown compared to the digital experience.

While not a typical UX task, I ran solo designer for this project and served as proxy Product Owner as I was best placed to understand the exact requirements.

As the company was undergoing a major rebrand during this time period, I had to liase closely with the brand team to ensure I was using the latest approved assets, and work closely with the developers to understand our current PDF softwares limitations

Based on internal technology feedback, rather than a big bang report redesign, I opted to deliver it icrementally. The biggest challenge was moving from a portrait to vertical layout, so developers completed this first in the old style. They then incrementally added new features we were missing like a cover page and contents while I liased with brand on the final look and feel. By the time we were ready to implement and release the final design, all the known technical hurdles had been overcome ensuring a smooth delivery.

This change has been very well received internally and externally, as it was a relatively cheap project to run but instrumentally changed the user experience for the better, leading to us being described by users as market leading in the reporting space.

New Feature - Target growth

Originally, we had benchmarking on our roadmap, relying on a 3rd party data provider. This initiative had to be dropped as costs proved prohibitive

Rather than admit defeat and tell our users we couldn't deliver this feature, I revisted research and noticed an expression of interest in a "Personal benchmarking idea"

To validate this, I ran a series of moderated and unmoderated tests with users, understanding why they would want to benchmark in general, what sort of financial goals clients most often held, and how this fit into the reporting ecosystem

It became clear that users had clear financial goals i.e. Ourperform a standard savings account in 1 year, Reach a pension pot of £100,000 by age 35. Financial targets often feel speculative, untangible, so if we could visualise these and include in annual reports it would be a benefit to clients, but also financial advisers.

This project took a fair few iterations to get right and get a business case approved, and required working closely with leadership to sell them on the value of this new enhancement

Eventually we were able to compromise and land on a new section allowing advisers to enter a £ or % target for there clients investment product. They could set a target for each product the user held. They could then see every time they logged in how the clients current product value or growth compared with this target, and ammend if required. This compromise met the research need of visually tracking performance against a personal benchmark, whilst limiting it to a smaller MVP type delivery to ensure market receptiveness before investing further

AI was intstrumental in getting this project off the ground, as this feature was so interactive I overcame the limits of figma prototypes by utilising Figma Make to create real coded prototypes that could be rapidly edited for use in user testing as well as for internal demonstrations.