We did user testing with 8 users, a heuristic evaluation, and an Information Architecture mapping to learn about the product and discover UX problems.

From research, we learned the fundamental interaction model of this app is to select accounts of interest first, and then see financial data of selected accounts.

We identified 2 typical types of users who engage in different levels of financial data exploration. In general, snapshot users tend to frequently check account-by-account but only see the summary pages to understand the overall account status. Power users tend to deep dive into detail pages to explore detailed data, like holdings, gain/loss, and asset allocation.

We held a stakeholder workshop with a feature prioritization exercise to ideate concepts and keep business stakeholders aligned. The outcome is a list of prioritized features we will incorporate in the Quick Wins, MVP and Vision versions of UI screens.

Regarding the MVP design, I first ideated concepts to address three framework-level challenges:
1) The limited real estate on the account menu sidebar makes it impossible to add more MVP features. 2) Find the best way to deploy tab-based navigation to enable users to easily access and switch between detail pages.
3) Explore new ways to make the IA optimal for both snapshot and power users.

After I expanded the sidebar width to put more account finding and grouping features, I explored a floating account menu pattern. It makes the interface simpler and clearer without showing the sidebar persistently when the user (especially power user) is deep-diving into account detail pages. But the floating menu makes switching accounts more time-consuming. We planned to test it to learn user feedback on the floating design.

I had two ideas of tab-based navigation regarding the level of hierarchy the detail pages should locate in. Combining the two menu ideas with the two new navigation ideas, I have two distinct IA concepts.

Three criteria are used for concept evaluation:

We believe a simply structured foundation is easier to understand for users and more scalable for the business. In conclusion, we chose the concept B to move forward.

Based on the concept B, we decided to add a contextual navigation module to provide a clickable list of the selected accounts to optimize the account-by-account exploration. Through this design, users can see what are the current selected accounts without opening the sandwich menu, and they can also click on this module to jump to the pages of the subset of the selected accounts.

After IA redesign, I crafted new detail pages including holdings, performance, and income pages. I worked with business stakeholders to gather requirements and design a variety of options.

A key design challenge is to define a consistent data visualization layout for all detail pages. Taking the new holdings page as the example, I explored the plain page design option with the top chart and bottom table. And I also explored the tab/toggle option to enable users to switch between chart mode and table mode. I wanted to understand in the following user testing about users’ preference on the page layout options - if they prefer to see the chart as the starting point of exploration, if they are interested in interactive charts, and if they prefer seeing chart and table on the same screen or separately.

We tested our design with 9 users. The primary tasks are around account selection (new account menu pattern), account grouping, tab-based navigation, and new detail pages.

Our analysis is that users can’t successfully find and use the floating menu because using the persistent sidebar to switch accounts is their learned behavior. Besides, they were confused about the relationship between the account menu and the local account menu. Thus, we decided to add the sidebar back as the default option to improve the learnability of UI. In the meantime, we still see the floating menu as a good pattern for power users and the users who don’t have many accounts to switch. So I designed a flexible dual-mode account menu in the design iteration.

Based on feedback, I also updated the chart strategy on detail pages. Now the chart and table is on the same plain detail page template.

After user testing, I delivered development-ready Figma design files for the MVP version. I closely collaborated with engineers to make sure the smooth implementation process.

Working as a product designer in a business consulting environment to design for the client's core product needs to tackle with a complex and challenging design workflow. I needed to ensure my design concepts can reflect EY's wealth management consulting experts' opinions, meet the feature requirements from the client's product team, and reference the preliminary design direction from the client's design team. When there are conflicts between different perspectives, I always proactively communicated with stakeholders with user advocacy to propose concept iterations, articulate design rationales, and lock in agreements. This set up the foundation for the project success.

Different types of core users may have disparate mental models and behaviors. The features which are helpful for a type of users may become obstacles and distractions in front of others. In this case, providing flexibility through UI personalization and customization to improve efficiency is an effective way to optimize usability.