PlanMember

Technology has already altered the financial market forever. Among traditional financial organizations, 82% plan to increase collaboration with fintech companies in the next three to five years. Consumers demand a seamless digital experience when handling their funds. Financial companies must work to provide this for them or risk losing out.

Contemporary expectations can only be met with the best technology. Think about it. Would you do business with a bank that didn’t have a website or offer a form of SaaS? It’s that simple and yet there are still financial institutions like this that exist. 

The organizations that put customer needs at the forefront of strategies are those that win the prospects and keep them. Here is where PlanMember was able to find market fit. We offer a SAAS to independent financial institutions. Through PlanMember, they are able to manage all of their individual clientele, groups, new enrollments and rollovers through one online platform.

Overview: Platform that allows Financial Representatives to manage their clients

Role: UX/UI Design, UX Research

Software: Figma, Wrike, Xtensio, Miro, Whimsical, SurveyMonkey and Zoom

Product: Complete overhaul/redesign of a SAAS Platform

Timeline: 9 Months

The financial services industry…

The global financial sector is expected to be worth US $26.5 trillion in 2022 with a CAGR of 6%.

64% of consumers worldwide have used one or more fintech platforms, up from 33% in 2017.

User Interviews

The users were provided with a consent form, conducted over Zoom and took place within the span of 14 days. The interviews were conversational and in-depth. Prioritization was placed on making the user feel comfortable and open. You can find the main insights below.

• Several were excited at the aspect of having more technology at their fingertips

• Most expressed caution and concern about it possibly making their work more difficult

• The main user flow was from the dashboard over to BusinessConnect to add new business.

User Survey

A survey was also sent out to over 1,000 clients. Below are the key findings:

• The main action they take is uploading forms and adding new business

• Nearly 40% have used paper forms to avoid the online experience

• Almost all Financial Representatives want an easier way to onboard

• There are significant information gaps in knowledge about the current website

• Vanguard

  • Clear path to task

  • Visuals used to illustrate

  • Consistent design across platform

WHAT IS A PERSONA?

Although personas have become more debatable in recent times. I believe they can still help serve a purpose. While it should be used as a supplementary research tool and not a heavily relied upon one. Personas help to not only create a vision of your user but help to formulate needs, wants and frustrations. They are based on behaviors and motivations of real people we observe or data gathered from actual users encountered in ethnographic interviews. They help to maintain alignment with all members of a team on a website or digital project. They serve the purpose of helping to orient a project and can be used to help make informed decisions when user goals are called into question.

John Jones

As we can see here the persona created is named John. He is a local small business owner who opened a shop about 8 years ago. All the effort and time he has put into his business has finally started to pay off. He wanted to continue growing his book of business but is struggling to do so now. His business has grown to the point where managing it is taking more time then sourcing new business

He Doesn’t have much time to spend on researching so he wants to spend as little time as possible doing paperwork. However, due to the time constraint he has a very short temper with people wasting his time.

Current Site Map

I’ve laid out the basic structure of what the platforms layout is. As you can see it is extremely dense right now. The main focus now should be on simplicity and ease of use. Utilizing the users mental model on traveling will help to minimize any unnecessary friction points while navigating the app.

Future State Journey map

The customer journey maps gives us a visual perception on not only where the frustrations lie in their user journey, but also how they are reacting to their frustrations and what methods of resolve they try to accommodate to improve their own satisfaction. In this journey map, you can see how the user goes from unhappy and frustrated to understanding and happy once they go through the upload.

Future User Flow

Here you will see the ideal user flow created with the options that the user might incur along the path onboarding a new client.

Demographics 

• Ages 40-69

• Financial reps and account managers

Behaviors

• Uses current platform to upload client information

• Is focused on increasing time efficiency

Untapped Potential

The retirement of Baby Boomers in the financial advisor industry is creating a need for new wealth managers in the younger generations. 56% of industry professionals are age 50 or above for the industry right now, compared to just 5% who are under the age of 30.

Generations X and Y are expected to accumulate roughly $46 trillion in assets by the end of 2020, which includes $18 trillion in inheritances from their parents who were Baby Boomers.

This is a perfect time to redesign a platform to better suit the younger generation of future financial professionals.

Typography

Color palette

CTA buttons

All Iconography was updated

High-Fidelity vs old

A/b Visual testing

A/B visual testing was competed at this stage and was shown that users preferred the informational layout of the new screens. Recognition and recall of certain features were improved by an average of 42%. Meaning that when shown an image of both the old and new design for 15 seconds. Users were able to more accurately place and describe the UI of the platform.

User Testing

Once the first iteration of the high fidelity prototype was completed, a round of user testing was conducted using three new users. They were asked to complete a set of simple tasks which included logging-in and locating how to submit new business, finding out if a submission was approved and locating if any of their clients are NIGO (not in good order).

Some key insights were

• Task to time had an improvement by over 1:30 seconds on average

• The number of clicks was decreased by 25%

• Exit interviews concluded that all three users preferred the new design.

Final thoughts and Prototype

Outcome, challenges, reflection and over 160 pages of designs/ iterations later. I believe PlanMember finally has a solid footing in which it can build off of.

The world is moving forward with tech at an incredible pace, especially in the financial space. Technology is now expected at every turn to help improve the lives of your user. And if not done right, or constantly iterated on, you could miss out.

Thanks for reading all the way down! Make sure to check out the app using the link below!