Getting started

In 2017, I joined E*Trade as a consultant focused on mobile innovation projects.

• The Product: Virtual Advisor
• Target Audience: Current 401k clients
• Problem statement: DIY Investing is too complex.
  - Rational question: How do I get started?
  - Emotional question: How do I become confident with my financial decisions?
• Business Goal: Make it easier for our customers to do business with E*Trade, Increasing "Assets Under Management", Increase Managed Accounts
• My Role: Senior Product Designer
  - Reporting to the creative director
  - Working with Product Owner, Tech Lead and Head of Customer Experience.

The Process

Planning

Using Mural, we collected ideas and aligned on business goals, customer needs and action items during a workshop.

Competative analysis

Reviewed both direct and indirect competitors on cash investing, retirement calculators and projection flows.

Sketches

Started the design process with pencil sketches to serve as low fidelity wireframes. This is the way I iterate through and array design options quickly.

• The main purpose was to isolate the user flows and options available.
• Pencil and paper makes everyone less vested in the direction, since it can be quickly changed with an eraser.
• I made sure to keep the cognitive load low with a focused hierarchy of information.
• Reviewed 3 rounds of sketches in 2 days, exploring allocation, risk management and ordering.
• The sketches help myself and the team isolate a direction as quickly as possible for wire framing.

UI Design

At the beginning of my design process I created wireframes for testing purposes.

Guiding Questions:

What is the main task flow to test?
Are there different paths a user can take to complete the task?
will customers find the information useful and coherent?
Followed iOS design patterns after reviewing device usage numbers we settled on iPhone6 as the baseline (2017).
Used Flinto to prototype.

Research findings

• Participants appreciated learning the difference between traditional and roth IRA.
• Not interested in reading the articles.
• Interested in viewing short videos.
• Wanted simpler interactions to learn projections.
• Found confirmation step confusing.
• Wanted to see order on home screen after order

Preparing for development