Creative Product Innovation

How imagination can lead to change that’s delightfully unexpected

 

TL;DR:

  • The existing retirement readiness score at a top financial services company scares and confuses users, leading to inaction

  • A team of 2 UX Designers consult with a wealth management UX team to imagine a new financial plan measurement

  • We gathered inspiration, explored different options, and finally landed on a handful of concepts for resonance testing with customers.

Role

Co-lead UX Designer

Key skills

Concept design \ Data visualization \ Graphic design

 

Opportunity

A top financial services company received feedback that people (users and advisors alike) don’t understand the current retirement readiness score. It was giving, doomsday with users describing the visual as pessimistic and discouraging.

It also doesn’t support the planning evolution at the company—multi-goal planning that makes connections between different goals, nor enable the company to provide robust trade-off and optimization capabilities.

 

Process

As a team of 2 UX Designers, we had discussions with the team and their product partners to understand the current state and any expectations for the future of financial planning. Based on those insights and industry research, we defined what a financial plan is, the characteristics of an ideal measurement, and gathered inspiration.

The financial plan measurement:

  • describes the strength of a person’s

  • financial plan in totality

  • is a real-time evaluation of market simulations, plan completeness, and behavioral and emotional aspects of financial wellness

A financial plan includes:

  • budget/cash flow

  • debt management

  • protection/insurance

  • retirement

  • tax strategy

  • estate/legacy

  • financial behaviors and emotions

Sample inspiration

 

Concept design: Round 1

We flooded a Figma file with ideas and rough concepts.

 

Concept design: Round 2

From there we mixed and matched different score visuals with different explanation types and calls to action—exploring how they’d manifest in a small viewport (smartphone).

 

Concept design: Final Round

Finally, we moved forward with concepts that we hypothesized wou strong reactions from customers and stakeholders, like excitement or apprehension—innovation should be a little scary! The objective of creating these concepts was to get big ideas in front of customers so that we could learn what they need and want from a financial plan measurement. Below are two of the four final concepts for resonance testing.

 

You have a new test result

Inspired by innovations in medical diagnostic test results, we used a written description to express how the person is doing overall, with clear goal-specific results along a numeric scale with ranges.

 

It’s all about the vibes...and a little math

Through the use of color and a 4-quadrant graph, this concept uses a subtle aura with a corresponding message with a persons status. The graph illustrates the 2 scales being used to measure success—plan confidence and financial wellness.