Building on Empathy
How might we redefine a global B2B product from the ground up using research, empathy, and understanding?
Project Brief
Client
Wunderman Thompson
Role
Principal UX
Industry
Global B2B Financial Investments
Where We Started
As the lead UX designer for a leader in the investment industry, I consolidated multiple global websites into one platform. The main challenge was to restructure these websites to inform and guide all users in performing specific financial tasks. I prioritized the needs of the end-users by using creative problem-solving methods to present the information in a format that made it easy for visitors to access their desired content and carry out various high-level tasks.
Our Approach
In close collaboration with the strategy and research teams, we undertook heuristic evaluations and audits of the individual websites. Our objective was clear: to gain a deeper understanding of these sites' unique features and how our users interpreted financial terms and processed information.
Current State IA Audit
Audit Existing Architecture
By meticulously mapping the current Information Architecture (IA) across all sites, we were able to identify patterns that aided in evaluating content by uncovering both similarities and differences.
This comprehensive exercise provided invaluable insights by highlighting the content hierarchy and page taxonomy.
Personas & Journey Maps
Partnering with the Experience and Strategy teams, we designed three unique personas for our current users across five sites, aiming to create a hyper-personalized approach focusing on each user's journey.
Howdy!
Customer Journey Maps
Now that we had our user personas, we mapped them to unique tasks based on their needs to help us understand critical expectations. We aimed to discover where users were most active, identify their goals, and search for areas of opportunity.
We set out to understand their goals and motivations by parsing their engagement into four categories:
1
Explore
The first point of entry. The user navigates information about their specific needs
2
Consider
The user evaluates options based on their needs and expectations
3
Decide
The user chooses which option(s) are best for them
4
Recommend
The user feels confident in recommending the client's site and continues engagement
By mapping the user's engagement, we understood their needs and the critical moments needed to create a cohesive experience.
Hybrid Card Sort
Evaluate the Information Architecture from the user's perspective by asking financial professionals in various roles to organize a set of topics into categories.
Read about 2021 investment themes
Mutual Fund Performance
Exchange Traded Fund Prices
Special Tax-Sheltered Retirement Plans
Watch Highlights from the Sustainable Business Summit
Cards
Investment Vehicles
Mutual Funds
2 Items
Equities Asset Class
Category
Card Sort Findings
The card sort results ultimately did validate our overall assumptions on the IA, but we still found opportunities to create relevant cross-linking from other pages of the site to improve findability. Armed with qualitative and quantitative data we then incorporated our research findings into the Information Architecture diagrams.
Future State User Journeys
Using the personas we mapped our users through multiple high-level experiences to better visualize steps and user priorities. Working closely with the Experience Designers we highlighted the many User Interface touchpoints to gain early insights to help visualize the user journey and prioritize component design.
In Conclusion
The path to success is smoothly paved by the time and effort spent better understanding and defining who we're designing for. It's a long and tedious process, but well worth the effort.
The designs and steps we made were completed in order to define and ask the right questions to the right people which in turn enlightened the entire team with vast amounts of insight based upon many weeks and months of intense research, interviews, and revisions. The work we did not only validated a process, but it also, and I quote, "Overall (these UX Designs) are friggin' great — you truly helped me in understanding and navigating steps forward/priorities. Thanks again for your hard work."