Collapse 3 legacy trading offerings into one best-in-class user experience
Through acquisitions, Envestnet owns three different trading offerings, none of which are quite hitting the mark. Client feedback was at the heart of our journey to reimagine one consolidated best-in-class offering.
My role
I spent the first 5 months of this project 100% allocated as an individual contributor. Then, I hired my replacement and shifted my focus to scaling the team overall.
Impact
6 million accounts
Problem
Customers have to decide between three different trading products, none of which hit the mark in terms of usability.
Solution
Create a single “best-of-breed” trading application for financial professionals.
Process
Tour the competition
I interviewed internal SMEs to identify our competitors and then scoured the internet for any visuals or feature set information I could find.
Tour in-house offerings
First, I scheduled high level end-to-end demos of each platform. Then, I scheduled more focused calls where all stakeholders reviewed a specific element of the workflow back-to-back-to-back. For example, we compared the order generation process between Envestnet, Folio, and Tamarac.
Select best workflow and design elements
I analyzed the similarities and differences between the workflows available in our three different trading offerings.
Mock end-to-end workflow
I developed an initial end-to-end Figma prototype based on prior learnings.
Collect internal stakeholder feedback
I scheduled design reviews with internal stakeholders (product, operations, client support, sales) from all three business units.
Develop personas, increase specificity
Based on internal feedback, we developed several personas and user stories. I iterated on the overall design to optimize each of these workflows.
Vet with Customers, Iterate
I worked with product to identify clients who would be a good fit for design reviews. Since the Envestnet organization did not have a history of reviewing designs with clients, I scheduled 1:1s with the appropriate client facing team members to discuss the vision and resolve and concerns they had.
During the sessions, I set expectations with clients, walked through the prototype, and asked targeted questions to determine if we were directionally on track.
After 20 total reviews from 12 clients, we gained confidence in our solution. The feedback went from being large directional changes to small detail-oriented feedback. Our goal at this stage is directional alignment, not perfection. We felt confident enough in our solution to engage the engineering teams and move into execution.
Execute
This work is actively in development and receiving ongoing support from my design team. We look forward to conducting usability testing as soon as the development environment is ready.
