RJ Mobile
Role: Design Manager, Design Lead
Duration: ~6 weeks
Year: 2015
One of the projects that began before I joined was a mobile app for Financial Advisors. Unfortunately, there was no designer working on the product, and it was evident. Apparently, the decision was made to simply copy the Client Center web app and recreate it on for a mobile device. I voiced my concerns, but there were some internal politics that required a slightly different approach... so I put things in writing...
Mobile App Design Review
The first thing I did was review the existing design, and produce a written summary of my thoughts. This document caused quite a stir inside the organization, but ultimately led to the opportunity to start over and ensure we developed the right thing...
Although I was still new to the business, I had already begun doing some discovery work and had a pretty good sense of the different types of Financial Advisors at the firm, and how their practices differed. Although not perfect, at this stage even a lightweight segmentation of the audience was better than none.
As part of that initial discovery work, I had also started to get a feel for the different use cases, and understood that some things mattered more than others.
Once use cases are defined, it's critical to have a clearly defined prioritization mechanism.
On the surface, the home screen that the team was planning on building seemed very logical. A Financial Advisor would want to see their book of business, but there are some problems with this on, especially on a mobile device... first, the numbers don't change very often, and second, they aren't actionable. Interersting, not actionable. If you're designing for a mobile experience, the use cases (as called out above) really matter.
As mentioned, the document caused quite a stir inside the organization, but led to the formation of a small team that was given permission to try to improve the product before development began.
The first thing we wanted to do was demonstrate progress, we wanted to provide people with something in two weeks and prove that taking the time to rethink the approach to the mobile app was the right thing to do. We got in a room and put a plan together....
The next step was developing scenarios ofr a Design Studio...
As we were working on this we developed an overall structure for the app
As we were working on this we developed an overall structure for the app
Holdings Screen
