the one that won a big client

Many companies want to support their employees’ financial wellness—helping them pay their bills, manage debt, save for a rainy day, and protect themselves from financial strain. So when a major client approached us with seven distinct user scenarios that our financial wellness experience needed to solve, we got to work—fast.

We had just four days to map out the user journeys and build a prototype. And once we won the business (yes, we won!), we had to deliver 18 months’ worth of work in just nine.

This was a really exciting one for me because it was the first really big program that I led, working closely with my UX design partner. When our business partners were worried about delivering a compelling pitch in so little time, we grabbed our dry erase markers. And when they were wondering how we’d deliver in less time, we helped them build a UX roadmap and augment our resources.

The program spanned 11 workstreams and involved 19 squads. In terms of process, I instituted UX collabs, cross-pod design reviews, and Teams chats to keep everyone connected on the very interconnected deliverables. These included a financial wellness checkup, a personalized dashboard with next best actions, IA recommendations to the navigation, and improved or integrated planning tools.

Not only did we retain a big body of business with a strategic client, but we also boosted engagement by 14% overall, including larger lifts with key audiences: jugglers (+20%), young (+23%), and women (+22%).

Personalization and collaboration were the key drivers of success.