Liontrust Asset Management recently acquired its competitor Majedie, which came with an outdated client portal that is no longer effective.
The challenge is to design a simple and easy-to-use portal that can simplify complex financial data and offer efficient tools for report generation and data export.
The solution should cater to the needs of both private and professional investors and should be suitable for varying degrees of financial expertise. Additionally, it should fit within Liontrust's existing digital landscape.
Research, strategise, and design a portal that can assist clients in their fund management needs, and that cater to the needs of both personal and professional investors.
This first research phase aimed to delineate our users' workflows. How do they currently consult their fund investment data? What do they do with it? How does the use of portals fit into their workflow? What pain points are they presently experiencing?
I carried out 10 user interviews and 20 user surveys to achieve my goal.
I surveyed 20 Liontrust clients. The participants were asked about their workflow and the digital tools they use to accomplish their goals. As existing clients, they were asked about their expectations and needs.
They were also shown static images of the current portal and asked to provide feedback.
A lot of users struggled to read and understand data.
Users couldn't identify a way to export graphs and table
Monthly and quarterly reports are the most valuable documents for most users.
The survey respondents have provided their valuable insights on the specific information and data that is relevant to them.
I interviewed 5 personal investors and 5 personal investors. None of them were LionTrust clients, but all were fund investors.
During the interviews, I asked the participants about their day-to-day jobs, what kind of data they were interested in gathering, and what they needed it for.
Finally, they were asked to share their experiences using other portals and how they fit into their workflow.
Most users utilise portals to generate and export reports. Both professional and private users require a quick way of exporting a PDF summary, while professional investors almost exclusively use complex .xml data exports.
Access to extensive data is valuable, but users typically need just a particular segment and want the ability to export only that portion.
Investors have established ways of reading investment content, but personalised and ad-hoc content is valuable.
I organised all the data I gathered and synthesised my findings.
I created affinity maps and mapped the customer journey to identify gaps, inefficiencies, and opportunities.
From here, I started planning a strategy for designing solutions for the problems we encountered.
Documents and reports are more valuable to a broader number of users than open data and need to be prioritised
There's a need for a central dashboard containing various content, from a list of investments to personalised market insights and a section to create reports.
The portal navigation needs to be redesigned so that it's easier to move from one fund to the other and access other sections of the portal.
Data, tables and graphs need to be easily exported.
I mapped out key user journeys based on the information gathered so far, highlighting the users' experience at every step.
I designed key user journeys, such as how a user can generate a report. This way, I can start addressing some issues I encountered immediately.
The goal for the user flow was to simplify and streamline the journey as much as possible.
After aggregating the findings from the user interviews and the stakeholder workshop, I moved to the design phase, starting with sketches first and wireframes later. The wireframes mapped out the portal's structure, emphasising features like quick report generation, data export and quick performance overview.
I then progressed to prototyping, converting static wireframes into interactive models. This step enabled the team and stakeholders to experience Lionhub's interface firsthand, ensuring it met user expectations and allowing for any necessary refinements before user testing.
Following the prototyping stage, I embarked on user testing to ensure the platform met user expectations and identify potential improvement areas. We invited 10 participants, representing private and professional investors, to interact with the prototype. Their feedback provided real-world insights into the platform's usability, functionality, and overall experience.
Overall, the users liked the prototype. The dashboard and navigation performed well with users. Dashboard offers valued and relevant content. The portal is easy to navigate; all users can complete assigned tasks. Data is readable, and users can export data.
By monitoring users' interactions and gathering feedback, I could pinpoint areas that needed fine-tuning, ensuring that the final product was intuitive and aligned with its target audience's specific needs and preferences.
At the heart of Lionhub is a dashboard that provides a snapshot of a client's total investments, highlighting key metrics such as fund performance and market insights. It also provides a streamlined flow to generate a report, allowing users to export data in seconds.
Users can delve deeper into individual funds, accessing data like fund strategy, historical performance, risk assessment, and more. Interactive charts and graphs allow visual data representations, simplifying complex financial terminologies.
Users can export data and generate reports in just a few clicks.
Data tables can be expanded, helping users to better access relevant information
The portal features a notification system to ensure clients are always up-to-date. Users receive tailored updates on market shifts, fund performances, and more.