Kicking things off
At Halo, the Dashboard was sacrosanct. Few observations had been made and continual research and adjustments had hardly been applied. For a few years, a lot of what made Halo valuable to our target audience of financial advisors within the market of products had been largely about what was under the hood--the APIs and Quantitative models that are used to find the best prices on investment products in ways only something like Halo could do.
There was a lot of design debt. In fact, the whole dashboard was design debt. It was a smorgasbord of panels and tiles that had been slapped onto it over time to chase various needs of the business when they arose, and as the company scaled, the product needed to scale with it.
I took on the initiative to completely redesign and re-strategize the Front Page of the Product™, and this case study documents how I went about it.
Keeping things Open ended
When preparing for Subject Matter Expert interviews, I usually always start with a discussion guide. This ensures each participant is getting the same sets of questions, and responses can be tracked against. I make these discussion guides with intention. In this case, I needed to better understand both the current problems and current understanding of what the dashboard is, isn’t, could be or should be. Up until this point there had been no strategy on it, and no one person or line of business owned the Dashboard. No documentation existed. This was fintech dashboard archaeology.
What Problems Are We Trying to Solve?
After the interviews were concluded, I’d interviewed for a broad range of roles across the business from sales, marketing, support, and product. It was sticky note galore. At this point I brought in our lead designer to assist with the synthesis process to start to sift the problems down to the essentials. I often describe this part as “where the sausage is made, and once we made it out the other side we arrived here:
The Dashboard does not prominently display critical elements like 'Portfolio Summary' which is central to user daily activities, and it underemphasized educational resources crucial for both new users and regulatory requirements.
Moreover, the rigid structure of the Dashboard prevents all users from customizing their interface, thereby hindering efficient access to the most relevant tools and information, such as specific trade ideas, calendar offerings, or the 'Watched Notes' feature. This leads to a suboptimal experience where users, particularly new advisors and those reliant on quick access to specific functionalities, can find the platform difficult to navigate or make effective use of, potentially impacting their operational efficiency and satisfaction with the platform.
This problem statement aims to highlight the need for a more customizable, intuitive, and user-focused Dashboard that aligns more closely with the various roles and expectations of all platform users.
I was able to break down user types into four essential roles:
User Journeys
Each one will need a different kind of experience when first landing on the Halo Dashboard that meets a combination of their own needs and the needs of the business.
Exploring and Evaluating Ideas
When sharing conceptual work with stakeholders, "grey-boxed" mockups keep the focus on the problem and solution, avoiding distractions from details like border-radius: 30px.
Once we agree on the problems and solutions, I move to high-fidelity screens to explore the design's look, feel, and fit within the design system.
I involve the Engineering and Product teams early in the feedback process to ensure comprehensive design explorations.
CONCEPT A - a notifications timeline that put portfolio events in chronological order.
CONCEPT B - portfolio events focused, with no card designs.
CONCEPT C - timeline. more ambitious, a social-media inspired interaction pattern with a chronological focus.
At this point the design reviews include much more collaboration with the front-end team to so they are aware of what needs to eventually be built and can add their technical input to help prevent scope creep.
Customization
Clutter Reduction
Role-Specific Features
Educational Tools
Closing Thoughts
Overall, my redesign of the Halo Dashboard addressed significant design debts and user experience challenges, aligning the dashboard’s functionality more closely with the needs of its users and the strategic goals of the business. This transformation not only enhanced the operational effectiveness of the platform but also positioned it for better future adaptability and growth.
During the low fidelity concept testing part (where I did all my designs in Miro) there was a timeline concept that I was working with that I was quite a fan of--it was a very different take on what a traditional landing page or dashboard in the fintech context could be. Based primarily on some of the insights I had pulled from interviews, this timeline concept was based primarily around the chronological organization of what we call "portfolio events" which are essentially just updates on the price movements on investments, and users would scroll this page not unlike a social media feed. It's a more novel take, and something I suspect could have held weight, but I wasn't able to get it out of design reviews and into our target users hands. If I could go back and do this project again, I'd have advocated more for this idea.
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IT WAS A SUCCESS!
It excited many stakeholders -- it fulfilled product’s vision, garnered engineering support, and set a critical stepping stone for Halo’s future.