Background

Client

Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Ameriprise Financial holds the 289th position on the Fortune 500. As a prominent financial services company, Ameriprise provides an extensive array of financial planning and wealth management services. Boasting nearly $12 billion in annual revenue and a global workforce of over 12,300 employees, Ameriprise stands out as a formidable leader in the financial services sector.

Team

• Product Owner

• Product Design Lead

• Product Designer (me)

• Technical Leads

• UX Strategist

• Content Writer

• UX Researcher

• Frontend Web Developers

• Quality Assurance Engineers

• Scrum Master

My roles as a Product Designer

• Competitive analysis

• Wireframes

• Usability testing (assistance)

• Visual design

• High-fidelity prototypes

• Client presentations

Tools

• Adobe Illustrator

• Adobe Photoshop

• InVision

• Sketch

Problem

• The previous version of the Ameriprise native mobile app did not feature an opening page of key accounts, client information, and common tasks

• Until now users would have to dig up pertinent information on their own, as well as remember where to perform various tasks through trial and error

• In addition, the legacy approach to the client desktop and the native mobile app experiences were out of sync

Solution

• The Ameriprise native mobile app dashboard offers customizable features and information tailored to the clients' needs

• The dashboard features personalized content and allows quick access to common tasks for users on the go

• The dashboard serves as the main entry point for users to succinctly view all of their accounts, other key information, and tasks at a glance

• In addition, the approach to the UX/UI of the native mobile app dashboard achieved parity with the client desktop experience

Discovery

Product Hypothesis

The goal of the Ameriprise dashboard is to enhance the client experience through customization, exceed client expectations through personalization, and surpass the competition, as it relates to native, mobile app technology.

Competitive Analysis

The Ameriprise UX Strategy team was able to provide our team with third-party analyses of competitors in our field, as well as documentation regarding user preferences, motivations, and needs in terms of financial native mobile apps. Our team was able to glean insights on how we approached the dashboard UX/UI.

In addition, I conducted my own independent, UX/UI competitive analysis based on both disruptors and conventional competitors in the financial space. This additional layer of intelligence assisted the overall design process to ensure our dashboard would be somewhat familiar, yet unique and different enough to offer our users a one-of-a-kind, financial experience.

Execution

High-fidelity Mockups

In a fast-paced, delivery-driven, agile work environment, we quickly spun up high-fidelity mockups of the key screens of our MVP. Different UI and UX approaches were explored for each user flow. Different sets of mockups were created for both iOS and Material Android designs to ensure consistency as we evolved the dashboard.

Testing

Usability Testing

A/B tests along with unmoderated tests were conducted with our target demographic to determine whether or not our proposed initial UI designs were successful. To some users the meaning of certain iconography was unclear, other users weren't sure how to perform certain customization tasks and some users missed key components of the UI.

With that said, we compiled and reviewed all of the comments, and ensured the key concerns were properly addressed in our next dashboard iteration.

Conclusion

Results

• In the dashboard MVP that was designed, clients are now easily able to see their key account information at a glance on one screen

• The interface allows clients the ability to quickly perform money movement or account-related tasks with only a few taps

• With more complete customization and personalization features slated for future iterations, the initial MVP laid the framework to build upon

• Given the ever-changing demands, features, and priorities of the native mobile app, Ameriprise was able to quickly launch an MVP of the dashboard that met the goals of the product roadmap

Lessons Learned

• By having a dedicated usability research team assist us with testing, we were able to focus our efforts on exploring the dashboard interface

• Once we received user feedback, we were able to quickly iterate to alleviate user concerns

• Differing, varying opinions matter in evolving the product - listen to all who lend their time and voice

• Finding the right recipe between balancing user feature needs, creating an innovative product, along with achieving business goals, and the costs associated with tech dependencies is a rare feat to achieve without lots of iterations