Back to WorkBack to Work
How might we empower Citigold's high-net-worth customers to manage their investment portfolios efficiently and onboard new customers by upselling new investment programs?
There was a 3rd party agency already engaged with the project, but my company took over the project from the agency and started over from scratch, but we used their approved design guidelines from a branding and aesthetics perspective per customer request. Our goal was to re-design and build an iPad-native app for high net-worth premium customers to set their financial goals, modify existing portfolios, and keep a track of their investment performances.
The new app intends to port-in all the existing features and functionalities from the legacy web app to bring in additional capabilities and provide a better experience for the users in terms of aesthetics, usability, interactions, and performance.
One of the issues was that the product stakeholders, design team, and engineering team were in Singapore, but the targeted pilot customers were in Hongkong and our team didn’t have the access to interview them for prototype testing.
I started off my design process by interviewing business stakeholders and portfolio managers to identify the business goals, customer pain points, tech challenges, etc. to define scope of the project.
High-Net-Worth Investers, Portfolio Managers and Relationship Managers.
Wireframes, Visual Designs, Styleguide, and HTML-based interactive prototypes for user-testing with the mock users to gather feedback and roll out the app in a 9-month timeframe.
As a lead UX designer, I managed a team of 6 other designers and frontend engineers, worked with business stakeholders and 3rd party vendors on requirements and branding, and planned for delivering the required prototypes and outcomes in a short timeframe. I was also responsible for measuring the success of the projects by validating the results with internal teams and mock users for any Phase 2 enhancements.
I created the Information Architecture, re-usable components library, and user flows to define the application's sitemap and how easily and efficiently the users can access their investment dashboard, view statements, and reports. Also, how could portfolio managers and relationship managers identify the opportunities to upsell new plans and programs to increase their business.
Business and stakeholder review sessions, design audits to provide additional inputs to the designers and engineering team. This helped the project team to pivot directions quickly and build the prototype with appropriate design standards.
The beta version of the app launched for the APAC region and the business and product teams received a huge response from the end-users because of the interactive design and simplified performance.
The product team then extended the contract for the Phase 2 scope and beyond to continue expanding the localization for other regions.
"I was the Experience Lead for a project with a large multinational bank when I worked with Ashok. Most of the work was taking place in Singapore and I needed someone there who I could trust. Ashok had been taking initiative from the start and when I asked if he'd be the local Experience Lead he stepped up and took ownership of the team and the day-to-day project management. In addition to interfacing with the business and technical teams from the client-side, he also managed the design team on the ground, coordinated with a technical team in India and worked with another vendor who had begun the design strategy. Ashok guided strategy meetings, produced hands-on wireframes and designs and proved equally adept at design as he was with technical issues. There was never any friction between us regarding responsibilities or communications. He earned the respect of everyone involved in the project and when he left the team it was openly regarded as a major loss by the client's technical, business and design leadership."
- Mark Green, Program Director and Experience Lead
