AllianceBernstein is a leading global investment management firm providing research services worldwide to institutional, high-net-worth and retail investors. AB brings together a wide range of insight, expertise and innovations to advance the interests of their clients around the world.
My Role
Product designer, I joined this project in its conception stage to lead the research, user interface and motion design. I was tasked with crafting the voice and tone of the app. Running user-research, distilling that information into personas, user-journeys, wireframes and bringing them to life via mockups and animated prototypes. I was in charge of all design deliverables and QA’ing the design implementation efforts.
the opportunity
AllianceBernstein private client team needed a way to satisfy user needs on the go. It was important for the stakeholders at AB that the team and I crafted an intuitive mobile app experience which would not follow the current features on the AB site but lead the re-design of a more user-centered experience across the whole digital experience.
I was tasked with designing the MVP, then guiding the long-term vision for bringing our product to life. I aimed to answer the following:
How might we…
connect with our users
build a product that empowers our users
imagine a rich, high quality experience packed with knowledge and delight…
The Team
I worked on a cross functional team comprised of a junior designer, two lead engineers, a business analysts, a product manager and a project manager.
Research
As we began this project, we thought it necessary to interview in-house financial advisors(stakeholders) and our clients. Financial advisor’s communicate daily with our clients and develop authentic relationships. Unlike other services where interactions could be limited to one or two meetings, FA’s establish an ongoing rapport with clients and have a key perspective. I conducted interviews to get an understanding of our competitive advantage, pain points and nice-to-haves.
Stakeholders saw an opportunity displaying the long term plan, and providing the ability to add outside/nonAB accounts. These were key features for them. The long term plan (My Plan) was an artifact financial advisors would leverage daily to articulate portfolio decisions. They also believed that the ability to add accounts outside of AllianceBerstein would be instrumental in order to view “the whole financial picture” of the clients.
In order to learn more about our clients and affirm we were solving for problems they faced, I crafted a client survey. The purpose was two-fold, to learn more about our clients experience, (what they liked, disliked) and recruit them for in-person interviews. Learning about their pain-points helped us get a better understanding of their experience and properly prepare the questions we would ask in the in-person user interviews.
Then for several weeks, I led and conducted exploratory user interviews with 16 AllianceBernstein clients across the United States. I interviewed them about their financial habits, how they currently engage with our team and learned about digital products they liked and disliked. I drew upon this exploratory research to determine what customer problems we should tackle first.
what we learn through User interviews and surveying
Current client experience with Bernstein
93% of clients would describe AllianceBernstein as excellent. They value their relationship with their advisor, and the personalized service they receive with AllianceBernstein.
Here are a few things we heard them say:
“Approachable, easy to work with”
“Listens to my goals and responds accordingly”
“Personalized service is something I haven’t found at any other firm”
“My advisor gives me peace of mind”
“Great support”
“Love that Im always in the know”
Clients love AllianceBernstein’s personalized service but wanted more transparency.
“I don’t understand why I can’t see how my portfolio is performing”
“What’s the allocation for my AB 2000 Retirement Strat A? Why can’t I see my holdings?”
When discussing the new app experience and what that might look like they said:
“I just log on to the website to see my balance. If you make an app, I want to quickly be able to see my money”
“It would be great to see my performance and holdings”
“Why would I want to message Zack through the app when I have his personal number?”
It was clear that our users wanted to be able to quickly view their total balance, access performance, and view holdings. While the ability to view their long-term plan (My plan), or add new accounts (features strongly recommended by our stakeholders) wasn’t something they strongly desired on the app. It was important that our stakeholders felt heard, so I conducted a research share-out where I presented my findings and stakeholders were able to hear recordings from the user research.
We aligned on the fact that adding new accounts was something the clients didn’t want and wouldn’t be on the app, however they insisted on keeping “My Plan” available on the mobile experience.
Client insights & Journey Maps
I used qualitative (user-interviews) and quantitative (surveys) inputs to develop client journey maps to identify specific opportunities for improvement (digital and beyond) across the journey. I also leveraged the gathered from key advisors/stakeholders to refine the journey map and inform prototype design and functionality prioritization.
personas
Personas were created from the information distilled from our survey and user interviews. The results of the research suggested that there were several types of users with diverse needs. A main persona, “The Delegator” whom trust their financial advisor to build an investment strategy that aligns with his needs, values AllianceBernstein’s white glove service and focuses on his peace of mind (encompassed 77% of our users) and two other personas whom represented smaller segments of our users. Therefore, I focused on our primary persona while still keeping the secondary personas in mind while designing.
Focusing on specific user types helped us keep our clients need in mind and not get too distracted with feature overload.
Sketches
Armed with had a solid understanding of our user’s needs and pain-points, I began sketching what this new experience might be. Keeping in mind the key features:
total balance
performance
holdings
long term plan (My plan)
Iterations
I continued to refine and iterate from initial wireframes based on usability test with clients. From each iteration we learned valuable information that led the redesigns. I iterated on UI elements, copy, and global navigation to get the right experience for our clients.
Usability test
I built prototypes in inVision and after effects, so we could see all micro-interactions and transitions in action. The testing focussed on the global navigation, the home-screen, performance screen, allocation screen and team screen.
Micro-Interactions and animations
I was in charge of all motion design. Micro-interactions can provide positive feelings about the brand and influence users’ actions, often without people even realizing it. It’s a great opportunity to communicate status and provide feedback while enhancing the sense of direct manipulation and it helps clients see the result of their actions.
Loaders
Brand presence throughout the experience is important. To reinforce this I played around with a few different custom loaders….
…before landing on our current loading signifier.
Prototype, Test, Develop
We continued to refine and iterate as we added features. I’d replace dummy copy, run usability test, iterate and sit down with our devs who would push a new version, and the cycle would repeat.
Style Guide
As the app came together through testing and iterating, I began to flesh out an app style guide. It acts as a central location where we house a live inventory of UI components, brand guidelines, brand assets, code snippets, developer guidelines and more.
Conclusion
What did I learn?
Designing a finance app has been a challenging and rewarding journey. Crafting that perfect experience for all clients is tough. I interviewed business stakeholders, researched Bernstein.com client surveys and looked at what features our competitors were providing. I understood the needs of our clients through interviews, surveys and usability testing. All that information guided my designs, to create a engaging meaningful, delightful experience for all clients.
What are next steps?
Cash flows out - The ability for our clients to transfer money out. Currently being developed.
iPad App - UI tweaks(readable width) to adjust iPad experience.
eSign research - Ability to sign documents via the app. Was validated through clients surveys, in the process of interviews clients.
Improve on boarding flow - On boarding flow needs to be updated to reflect new features added.
Animated empty states - Ui facelift to enhance experience.
Final thoughts
Financial apps are seemingly at a disadvantage because of regulatory and legal requirements. Until recently, this has led to poorly designed, bland, and sometimes incoherent apps, features, and processes. However, these limitations provide a great opportunity for designers. With a user-centered designed approach, a small amount of extra effort and thought, creating clear and simple experiences is actually made easier when requirements like regulations need to be followed.
This is where fintech products have an opportunity to improve. Most still lack refined user experiences and clean interfaces that have become commonplace in other types of apps, but the change has already begun, and more apps and services are creating better defined, smarter experiences that address user needs.
Here is an app breakdown from the Bernstein marketing team or view the app on the itunes store.