Project •
Digital Advisor
Digital Advisor is a cutting-edge Robo-advisor, which leverages digital technology to provide comprehensive financial planning and money management services entirely online.Digital Advisor is tailored to the needs of those who seek digital guidance and possess moderate levels of complexity in their financial matters, be it saving, spending, or investing towards specific goals like retirement, education, or debt repayment.
According to Grand View Research, the global robo advisory market size was valued at USD 4.13 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29.7% from 2022 to 2030.
In 2021, the direct plan-based/goal-based segment emerged as the dominant force in the market, capturing over 68.0% of the market share. This is largely attributed to investors' appreciation of the robo-advisor's robust goal planning, portfolio management and security features.Vanguard wanted to capitalize on this trend by enhancing its goal planning features in order to future-proof its position in the robo-advisor space.
FINANCIAL GOALS: PERSONALIZE MY PLAN AND KEEP ME ON TRACK
I worked as part of the Financial Goals team. Our focus was to deliver measurable outcomes to support investors. This included personalizing the goal planning experience, educating investors on factors to consider, and maximizing overall utilization of our goals-based framework.
Our process focused on answering three key questions:
How do we help clients build their financial goals?
How do we help clients evaluate tradeoffs to achieve financial goals?
How do we help clients balance paying off debt, saving and spending?
The team employed a combination of agile and lean UX practices to deliver an intuitive, modern, and digitally-centric experience. Our discovery process included a series of user and stakeholder interviews, as well as competitive analysis to find out what clients mental models were when it came to creating financial goals, what they considered to be goals versus expenses, as well as how they stayed motivated to reach their set goals. Our key objectives were to build an experience that fosters healthy behaviors and improves investor outcomes, which in-turn builds brand loyalty.
For this case study, we’ll hone in on Goal Creation. I worked alongside a UX strategist to define the flow for a user who has financial goals they want to plan and save for before retirement. This could be anything from a down payment on a house or car to funding a child’s tuition.
MY KEY TASKS
Design mid to high fidelity interfaces and prototypes.
Collaborate with User Research, Content Strategy and UX Strategy in discovery efforts.
Own implementation of Vanguard design system and collaborate with developers and QA to implement designs to code.
Collaboration across product teams to ensure consistent UI patterns.
Participate in continuous discovery efforts as well as lead and contribute to design critiques.
PROJECT TOOLS:
Abstract, Sketch, Invision, Figma, Mural, Jira, Confluence, Principle, UXPin
We enabled users to achieve these core actions in their Digital Advisor journey:
Add personal financial goals with their retirement goal to understand their likelihood of financial success.
Evaluate tradeoffs to understand options to achieve financial success.
Replan to stay on track and improve their financial success (evaluate tradeoffs and complete goals).
Our continuous discovery approach provided us the ability to iteratively deliver value while ensuring stability of platform performance. We employed a system of discovery + design to development sprint cycles ingrained with usability studies that ensured overall client satisfaction and utilization of tools.
