UX Research
Product Design
Design Systems
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios
Redefining accessibility and simplicity in investing, for people who never want to think about investing.
Industry
Fintech
Year
2014–2016
Timeline
2.5 years
The research question: What does it take for an everyday investor to trust an automated portfolio with their retirement, and how do we show them they're on track without making them work for it? Context: Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is an automated investing tool that constructs, monitors, and adjusts diversified portfolios with no service or management fees, including automatic tax-loss harvesting. The assignment: refine the post-launch MVP web app for consistency and new features, and build native compact and tablet apps for iOS and Android. Every decision sat inside a regulated environment where clarity isn't a nice-to-have, it's a compliance requirement.
My role: Senior UX Designer and Senior Researcher. Lead designer working with the research team, product management, and development across three engineering groups. Process: define outcomes, then research, hypotheses, design, prototype, test, learn. Research foundation: consumer personas built with the Schwab UX team and an external agency, and a customer journey map running from first engagement to the celebration of reaching a goal.
Outcomes at a glance: $21B+ in assets managed through the platform (as of 2016). What shipped: Goal Tracker, a daily companion showing On Target / Off Target / At-Risk status and projecting performance scenarios; Performance, at-a-glance portfolio information with no digging required; Multiple Account View, swipe between accounts instead of navigating a maze; and native compact and tablet apps for iOS and Android, plus a refined and more consistent MVP web app. What a customer said: 'I literally had to do nothing else but sign up and transfer the funds. I can't speak highly enough of it.' Learnings: the unseen effort behind a 'simple' product is enormous; balancing research, concept design, and MVP launch with limited design bandwidth is the real craft; cross-functional partnership kept momentum when the timeline got aggressive.
