Creative Product Innovation
A case study in design as innovation for customer satisfaction and business evolution
User need: Understanding of status and progress that enables them to take control and take action without fear
Business objective: Create several new financial plan measurement solutions to increase customer satisfaction and action while aligning with the companies planning methodology evolution
Role: Gathered inspiration, explored different options, and designed a handful of concepts for resonance testing with customers
Key skills: Concept design, Data visualization, Graphic design
Results: Not available due to reprioritization
Opportunity
It’s giving doomsday
A top financial services company received feedback that people (users and advisors alike) don’t understand the current retirement readiness score. Users described 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 defined what a financial plan is and the characteristics of an ideal measurement based on those stakeholder and industry insights.
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
Threw spaghetti at the wall…
We flooded a Figma file with ideas and rough concepts.
…to see what sticks
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).
Final concepts that stuck
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.
