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Designing user flows to help streamline business processes

My role and responsibilities included interpreting data and user feedback, determining information architecture, prototyping, UI Design, QA.
Tools used: Paper and pen, Flowmap, Sketch, Figma, Plant
Powerwrap
Powerwrap is a fintech company, one of Australia's leading wealth management platforms. It is used by advisers, wealth managers and brokers to manage and report on their client portfolios. Initially clients would have to interact with multiple non integrated systems (requiring different logins, workflows etc). Powerwrap created Hive to address those problems and allow user interactions with different backend systems in one frontend application. Initially the financial advisers would issue request to change fees (or other requests) by filling in free text input.
Problems:
  • Lack of structure causes confusion and necessity to contact advisers to obtain missing information
  • Missing workflow for processing of requests - both by advisers and the Powerwrap team
Goals:
  • Create forms for inputting adviser requests so they can provide complete instructions for Powerwrap team
  • Define workflow for processing adviser requests

Research

The complexity of this project was to understand all the existing fee structures and how they apply to each category of our clients. The adviser has the option to tailor their fees for each of their clients. The relationship between the financial adviser and their client starts with agreeing on fees and signing a contract. Understanding the contract has been the starting point. Following that I took a deep dive through 466 requests  created between 2019 and 2020.
I reached out to colleagues who worked at financial services of Powerwrap to get a better understanding of their workflows and issues with fees.

Most popular adviser requests.

Ongoing adviser fees

Ongoing advisers fees can be percentage, flat or tiered - with option to exclude certain assets.

Exclude assets

Over 68% of ongoing adviser fees, 13% are related to asset exclusion fees.

SMA (separately managed account) fees

No asset exclusion on SMA

Broker fees

That include International securities, ASX listed securities(Australian Securities Exchange), ETO (Exchange Traded Options)

Personas.

Adam Smith

Age: 55
Occupation: Finanacial adviser
Role: Manages a small team comprising of a Financial Dealer Assistant and a Research Associate
Motivation: Increase his revenue
Pain points:
Mistakes on fees don't look good in front of my clients
Goals:
Deliver the best outcome and quality of service to my clients and avoid human error.

Chloe Robinson

Age: 30
Occupation: Assistant
Role: Assisting in a management of mixed portfolios of wholesale and retail clients
Motivation: Help advisers do their work effectively
Pain points:
Never know when the new feees will be effective.
Goals:
I would love to have a better structure when needs to modify fees

User stories.

Describing user stories has been extremely helpful as it gave me an opportunity to explore the project and inform design decisions. The resulting user stories drove my experimentation for whiteboarding concepts and prototyping.
I want to update my ongoing adviser fee
I want to exclude the cash from the fee
I want to pause the ongoing adviser fee
I want to update the SMA fee, so that I can switch to a new fund manager
I want to update my international securities fee

Journey mapping
‍Updating fees

During the tax report discussion Jonathan Slayd indicates his desire to renegotiate the fees.
Adam Smith knows that the ongoing adviser fee is 0.60% pa. excluding GST (exceptions on SMA: 0% excl. GST or 0$), and brokerage fees: 0.50% excl. GST or $100 per transaction excl.GST
Adam reviews the contract and offers to Jonathan to lower the ongoing adviser fee to 0.55% pa. excl. GST. and the brokerage fee to 0.50% excl. GST or $95 per transaction excl.GST
Jonathan is happy with the offer and signs the amendment with the new fees.
After the meeting Adam gives
Chloe instructions to update the fees in the system.
Chloe receives instructions from Adam to update the fees in the system for Jonathan Slayd.
Chloe logs into Hive

Interaction with Powerwrap

Clicks on raise a request
Selects "Billing updates"
Choose a portfolio.
Checks "Ongoing adviser fee" and "Brokerage". Adds description and upload documents (optional)
Sends the request and gets automatic response: "We have received your request and will get back to you soon."
Chloe gets a notification that the fees has been reduced as requested.
Adam gets a notification that changes has been updated.
Jonathan sees the updates in his cashook.

Pain points

- No guidance or explanation of the process
- Confusing terminology
- Free text input (lack of structure)
- Back and forth between Powerwrap and the assistant

Opportunity

- Structure the interaction
- Use terminology better understood by advisers
- Provide instructions for effective date
- Create different request for each type of fee

Structures.

Interactions

This user flow has been really challenging. I tried many different approaches, but once I got it right the design and interaction came naturally.

Execution

Final design.

Providing workflow for updating fees (and executing other requests) in a well defined way allowed reducing the number of interactions between advisers and Powerwrap team. Focusing on a single request at a time was crucial to simplifying the process.

Select a fee

Hive's new feature gives advisers options to:
Select type of fees
Select portfolio
More actions related to the fees available

Configure your ongoing adviser fee

Through the process the adviser can choose the type of fee, apply to selected assets or deselect assets.
Structured process
Apply by date
Leave notes

Summary

The adviser can review the changes before submitting the request to the Powerwrap team.
Ability to review and confirm changes
Clearly laid out requested changes
Apply by date

Configure model fee

Access to the models for each portfolio and option to update specific rate.
List of models
Ability to edit rates
Structured process

Conclusion

Due to COVID-19 and merger with another company this project has not been prioritised and is not live yet.
I drove this project on my own for the first time with guidance of the UX lead. I began with no understanding of fees and in a month delivered a  design which was well received by stakeholders. It was a very research heavy project and provided a great opportunity to learn and showcase good implementation of User Experience Design process.

More work

Designing user flow for automating execution of financial transactions

Powerwrap
2020

Design, branding and creation of website

Konjo cafe
2019