Prospecting Portal

Prospecting ultra-high net worth individuals more efficiently and successfully for wealth advisors.

The product has been renamed due to NDA.

I’m responsible for the interaction design of this MVP product, from hand-sketched concepts to delivery. I work alongside with Visual Designer, Researcher, Product Manager and 3 Engineers. Due to confidentiality, this case study will focus on the “Network Graphing” feature as it’s using an open-source chart library.

February - September 2022 (8 months)

The why and what we were tasked with

FactSet strives to create an all-in-one wealth management product suite, offering solutions for various user types from relationship managers to CIOs. The product team identified an opportunity missing from our current offerings: a streamlined tool for wealth advisors to prospect more efficiently, which is typically a time-consuming and unstructured process with low success rate.

Here were some key MVP features we designed to help advisors get new clients:

  1. Generate personalized lists of prospects based on advisors’ unique criteria to save them time and effort from Googling prospects (a pattern uncovered through user interviews)

  2. Centralized place to monitor relevant news and activities of prospects so that they could stop receiving Google Alerts whenever a prospect’s name was mentioned (sounded overwhelming, yet research showed that it’s a commonly-used method)

  3. Insight into prospects’ networks to find mutual connections with advisors, leading to referrals or warm calls

As expected in any designers’ career, we enter the battlefield with PM.

Our research team did a great job outlining user needs and pain points through qualitative user interviews with a variety of advisors from large advisory firms to small independent businesses. The PM and Engineering teams translated those findings into a proof of concept prior to any involvement of UX design. One feature called Network Graphing especially had major usability and accessibility issues. The PM envisioned a data visualization for advisors to connect the dot between their networks and prospects. However, without proper understanding of user goals, it failed to provide any fundamental value . Our biggest challenge throughout the project was to advocate for design thinking processes to the project group, who weren’t familiar with what UX was about.

Breaking down original implementation

First, we evaluated the proof of concept’s Network Graphing and identified these issues:

  • Visual noise - Unnecessary information ended up overwhelming users. Knowing there was a connection between two nodes was more important than what the actual connection links were. The cognitive overload resulted from additional lines outweighed its value of displaying supplemental information

  • Inaccessible - Not all users would be able to interact with the chart. It was hardly accessible for some users to navigate to different nodes and links nor expand 1st, 2nd or n+ levels of connections

  • Not solving user needs - A key research insight showed that 90% of advisors’ prospecting relied on introductions or referrals from mutual network. However, the original flow only allowed random expansion of a prospect’s connections without tying it back to the users

The open-source chart as the framework for our Network Graphing

Empathize with advisors

We mapped out the steps of how advisors would utilize our Network Graphing to connect the dots between the prospects and them. It helped us and the PM visualize how lengthy and complicated the process was as users expanded deeper levels of connections. This mapping also showed that letting users expand multiple nodes provided little value as they still needed to focus on a particular entity and leverage the unique relationship.

User flow of prospecting through network

A simplified, user-friendly and accessible version of a complex vision

We learned from the issues of the initial proof of concept (sometimes it’s easier to identify bad UX and fix it than starting from the scratch!), and reflected on what the user goal truly was. We came up with ideas focused on how might we let wealth advisors leverage a mutual connection to network with the prospect.

We led advisors to the prospect with their known contacts (clients, CRM import, alumni etc) by a single click on “suggested path”, mapped by AI algorithm. This saved users significant time and effort from looking for or guessing which entities could provide a networking opportunity. We referenced to a few accessibility resources including W3C guideline and decided to show parallel information in the chart and in an accessible grid. The grid not only promoted inclusive design but also communicated hierarchical information in an organized and digestible way.

Default chart view for the prospect and his/her expandable connections

Active 1st connection and 2nd connection’s details showing the connection trail

Comparing outcomes before and after UX

Network Graphing of the proof of concept

Network Graphing of the new design

 

How is the new design better?

For the same end goal, our design simplified the endless loops into a much more straightforward path. As for the usability testing result of the whole application, users rated an average of 2 for its ease of use (1 was super easy and 7 was super hard).

POC’s prospecting flow through network

 

New design’s prospecting flow through network

In the end, we all win.

Our greatest victory lies beyond the product itself. We learned how to advocate UX methodologies and its impact to non-UXer. PM can focus on product strategies and business goals without mocking up (the wrong) ideas. Developers can save their resources from over-engineering. We all feel more confident now as a team working towards the same product success.