WEINVEST | INVESTMENT ADVISORY APP
Digital wealth as a service
Client/Product: WeInvest, a front-to-back-end open architecture platform that supports advisory & transactional business activities Goal: Make investing easier for at least a million lives/families by 2020. AdviseWealth evolves into full-fledge micro-services based platforms, which will be deployed with multiple UI skins & experiences to different clients.
The first steps On the first days, we conducted discussion and brainstorming sessions with WeInvest team to find out the company’s vision, the product’s values, and current competition. We also interviewed with 3 users – experienced RMs / financial advisors from notable banks – to pin down their work life, habits, needs and viewpoints. Based on these, user personas, user journeys and stories, information architecture, and app features were devised, with our design principles as a foundation to lean on.
Developing new features User need 1: Building meaningful and lasting relationships with clients As Relationship Managers, maintaining good communication with clients will always be the defining trait of their job. We broke this down to smaller, more specific needs. ● Updating clients with news and products that are personalized and affect their investment To do this, the client’s personal info, interests, and investment preferences would need to be captured first. Then based on these data, news and products can be marked with which clients they are relevant to.
As investment is specific to a client, client selection is required in each investing journey. There were 2 options for where to put it: – Right at the start when users land on Investment page – Near the end, only after users tap on “Invest” button Option 2 would save users an extra step if no actual investment were to be made. However, considering the case in which the user comes here from Client Details page, that particular client would have been chosen already. It would be better if no selection were prompted again, and so, it was necessary to have an indicator of the chosen client during the whole journey. That could only be satisfied by option 1.
● Knowing clients’ status and special dates to take necesary actions If you subscribe a website and has not visited it in a while, a reminder email will usually be sent to you. Checking on in someone is a way to keep the relationship going. How long since I last contacted that client? When will their investment mature? If this client invests a lot, maybe I need to pay greater attention to them? This is where a significant idea came in: A clients’ activity map to show RMs who should be their priority now, so that they can concentrate their time and effort efficiently. At first, the map was envisioned as a cross / circle radar. The problem was that you could not position any client accurately on this map (Aligning from the 2 axes gives you an exact point that might not match the needed value on the circle).
We then explored the idea of assigning points to each attribute (AUM, Available Cash, Active Frequency, Proximity to RM), whose total was taken as Priority Point and measured against the last time RM contacted the client. It appeared quite complicated to understand at first glance though, and would take a lot of space for explanation.
After WeInvest team decided on the final attributes that were more investmentrelated (AUM, Available Cash, AUM Change %, Gain-Loss Amount, Gain-Loss %), we found our solution in one of UX’s most universal elements: Tabs. It was clear at first sight and allowed the map to remain simple while incorporating more info.
View prototype ● Maintaining meetings and conversations with clients One RM mentioned that video chatting is not as helpful as face-to-face discussion; RMs still need to meet clients for any deal. Therefore, in order to make the app truly indispensable in an RM’s life, an event-setting/ to-do list feature should be present. ● Keeping track of anything remarkable about clients During meetings, an RM might learn a lot of valuable things about their client, which could turn the relationship into a special one if remembered and examined. Allowing them to take quick notes of those things is one way to accomplish that.
View prototype
View prototype
User need 2: Managing the team A need that is specific to RM Leads is knowing how their team is doing. One experienced RM said that he would like to get to under-performers early as well as recognize good team members. It is thus logical to have an RM Lead dashboard and details on each RM. WeInvest team provided us with required info on Dashboard, and I proposed content used in RM Details page. The challenge here was how to arrange a large amount of content that differs a bit here and there in a cohesive and concise way.
TOP 5 RM
Originally required on RM Lead Dashboard are: 1. Pipeline (Proposals) – 2. Revenue – 3. AUM (Assets under Management) – 4. Product Penetration – 5. Top Performing Products – 6. Leaderboard – 7. Client Coverage (Meetings, Proposals, Transactions, Orders, Portfolio Performance, Prospects vs. Conversions) – Pipeline (PL) / Revenue (RVN) / AUM had the same Category filter (Product Type…) and Time filter (Monthly…). Only PL was mentioned to have Team filter (Top 5…), but I considered it necessary for the other 2 as well. So all 3 together, under those filters. – Product Penetration (PP) and Top Products (TP) shared a common subject. PP had Team and Category filters (different from the one above). TP had Time filter. So they could be placed together, but separate parts. – Client Coverage already had many smaller sections, it could stand alone. The smaller sections had different starting values in Time filter, so they were kept independently. Previously this section included Proposals vs. Conversions, whose content was quite similar to PL, so I suggested to merge it into PL. – All sub-sections in Leaderboard had Team and Time filters, so they were displayed in turn by a proposed Category filter. In the end, Team filter seemed to affect every piece of data, so I moved it to the top, decluttering section headers.
Improving current features 1. Client Details page The WeInvest demo has many pages that require you to select a client beforehand (Analytics, Execution-only Portfolio, Advisory Portfolio, Preferences, Optimize).
Essentially, these pages are just part of a client’s profile. So I brought them together: – Portfolio tab (in place of Analytics, representing the whole portfolio’s overview), – Investments tab (in place of Execution-only & Advisory Portfoli, showing specific investments the client has made), – Optimization tab, – Preferences tab
New content for each investment, however, were decided by WeInvest team to be the same as that of the whole portfolio. Having 2 separate tabs, in that case, would be redundant and confusing. My solution was combining them into 1 tab, with a secondary navigation. This secondary navigation would need to be fixed on the screen so that it is easy for users to switch between investments, but as WeInvest team requested, it also needed to appear before the content it affected for logical reading flow. In the end, I went with a top menu that would stay at the bottom when scrolling.
View prototype
2. Rebalance/Optimize Portfolio (in Client Details) In terms of content and flow, Rebalance stays pretty much the same as the demo. The biggest change is that Rebalance needs to be present in each of client’s investments. Coupled with addition of 2 functions Invest More and Redeem in the same portfolio, I utilized the aforementioned secondary navigation for a new Update button.
View prototype For Customize function, in opposite to the demo which only allows changing of instruments, WeInvest now wants users to be able to adjust both asset classes and their instruments. With new sliders (to give more interaction), the screen would be very busy unless intrusments were separated into a different step (The team also does not favor scrolling too much). In Instrument Customization, users can add or remove the items beside changing their values. The problem with the demo is that the Trash icon, placed at start of the row, looks too inviting and easily tapped on. Hence I moved it to the bottom and reduced its prominence. By triggering checkboxes, it will also save users time and effort removing the instruments one by one.
View prototype
3. Core-Satellite The current core-satellite journey has a few issues: – Missing a result screen at the end of the core journey. Clicking on “Done” sends you back to the first core/satellite selection screen. Users need assurance that their actions are successful and recorded. – In core journey, portfolio name / target date / target value are grouped as a section equal to Constituents, Status, and Performance. These sections are influenced by the editing of the security list, the input fields are not. Beside the absence of relationship between target setting and security adding, 2 primary actions on 1 screen are a lot.
Therefore, I added a result screen for core portfolio, and brought target date / target value fields into Goal Selection screen. The name field was then turned into a popup as that would give the feeling it was less like a step and the process was quicker.
As for Securities screen, the then-position of the security list was quite hard to reach and could not stay fixed in case the content below became longer. As a result, it was moved to the left of the screen. Inside Status is how your investment has progressed toward its goal. As the instant result of every adding/ removing/ amount-changing action, it should also be available always, thus its placement at the bottom bar instead of hidden under a tab.
View prototype