Charles Schwab & Co.
Investing Themes Product
As Experience Design Director, I guided the multi-year redesign of Schwab’s Retirement digital ecosystem (web + native app), spanning onboarding, rollover, client dashboards, plan sponsor software, and advisor tools.
Scope of work
Product Design
Phased Release Planning
Feature Concepts
In first 4 months 65,800 trades completed
In first 4 months $156 Million AUM invested
80% decrease in post-sprint UI fixes because of process improvements
Product designed & Eng built in 1 year
Role
Experience Design Director
Date
Sept 2020 - March 2024
Team
104+ Team members
Over 120 members spanning teams from Marketing, Strategy, Product, Engineering, Data, UX and Customer Service
Problem
Schwab acquired the IP of a startup Motif and was now excited to build out a product and platform that harnessed the IP, but also provided clients a much desired way to buy based on values. Three big challenges: 1. The team needed to maintain consistency using Schwab's Design System, but because this was a new product, the team had to build new components for novel interactions. 2. Trading a basket of fractional stocks had never been done at Schwab. Our team had to work in the details of trade risk and alt use cases to capture everything that could go wrong so that our clients would not have trade fails and the company lose money by default. 3. All eyes were on this product from VP to CEO to Chuck himself.
The Approach
We began with mapping out the architecture needed to support this product in comparison to what was at Schwab. Tight deadlines forced our teams to work side-by-side with development. Teams delivered work and immediate value. Because of the novel product, unlike a linear trade, the team built a thoughtful exploration of available themes and an "easy as Amazon" approach to buying. The e-commerce nod received many compliments from the team. Marketing was also involved as we learned from UX Research how users valued the product and what problems it solved. Our open dialogue with the Marketing team allowed the language to reflect the real product market fit.
In first 4 months 65,800 trades completed
Outcomes
In 2 years LAUNCHEd
Redesigned and launched at least 1st phase of 6 interconnected experiences:
1. Enrollment & Onboarding
2. Rollover
3. Client Logged-in Experience
4. Record Keeping backend
5. Plan Sponsor Experience
6. Advisor Experience
BUILT PROCESS & CULTURE
01/ Created UX Bootcamps to educate Product and Engineering, which built empathy and shared practices.
02/ Developed a UX-QA process inside Agile, increasing efficiency and trust by 200%.
03/ Raised design maturity on team. Coached designers on workshop facilitation and alignment practices.
INCREASE FUNNEL & RETENTION
01/ Secured deals worth $300M with Airline and Healthcare companies because of work.
02/ Increased funnel conversion through rollovers and easier onboarding. Combined $29M AUM and 12,000 clients impacted first year.
03/ Customer satisfaction increased with combined app and easier to understand data, architecture and design.
SELECTED WORK
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