The Problem
Although Blackrock is viewed as a trusted source in the asset management insight space, they are not considered front of mind in the fixed income space compared to their competitors. The company wanted to push to change that at this time.
The Challenge
Convince financial advisors that they should view Blackrock as a clear leader in the fixed income space. Our task was to do this by creating a light engagement experience that led to products and thought leadership.
My Role
Working alongside the design director and researcher I was responsible for developing initial concepts to design, test and iterate based on user needs then iterate all the way to visual design. This also included co creation workshops, stakeholder interviews and user interviews with the full team.
The Approach
Discovery
We started by interviewing Blackrock stakeholders which included: Wealth directors, asset managers, Fixed income leads and sales team members to understand business objectives and how the current fixed income market was performing and their thoughts on Blackrock’s offering.
We also explored the Independant financial advisor mindsets that Blackrock already had to determine the core demographic for this particular experience.
The journey
Based on the interviews we had we came up with a journey that financial advisors go through when purchasng funds. We identified gaps which we would explore later within ‘explaining benefits’ and setting ‘goals’
Concepting Round 1
We started to generate ideas and sketch them out. We explored the opportunities including Relevancy of funds offered, Utilities and the brand perception. We then transformed these into concept cards to test with IFAs to determine which direction the light engagement tool was heading in.
Concept cards ready to test
Testing results
Our hypothesis was that the tool would be about raising awareness about fixed income but this was not the case. The strongest ideas linked back to challenging FAs to consider fixed income. They wanted to know why it should be used and when.
This helped us to form new mindsets.
Co-creation with the team
We shared the testing insight with a selection of the wider team and focused on the chosen mindset. We then narrowed down the strongest ideas into one worthy concept that we could then take, design and test again later.
Design the MLP
It was now time to take our outputs and develop a single digital experience. We created a mid fidelity prototype to test with more IFAs. We started with ideation and sketching.
Mid fidelity wireframes
Revise the journey
From this final round of testing round we learned that the entire journey is relevant to all personas/mindsets -- but we have an opportunity to link deeper to other BlackRock digital tools for more hands-on FAs. With this in mind we were ready to start the full visual design process.
The solution
A fully designed desktop experience in six weeks that used Blackrock’s design system as well as new design elements with customer validation and stakeholder engagement.
Have the conversation
A simple breakdown of the reasons why an investor should be concerned about Equity volatility.
The strategy
A trio pack of recommended funds to add to your portfolio.
The strategy in action
These recommended funds are now comparable against a benchmark fund by performance and are easily comparable by a filter. Fund factsheets are downloadable as a pdf for sharing.
The strategy in action against equity shock
These recommended funds are now comparable against a benchmark fund by performance and are easily comparable by a filter. Fund factsheets are downloadable as a pdf for sharing.
Outcomes
At the end of the 6 weeks all the dev ready assets were provided to the development team. The build phase started next with an offshore team during which I provided ad hoc support.
Improvements I would make
Test further during build. Although we tested during discovery due to the build constraints there was no budget or time to test visual designs further.
Team involvement. We pivoted at the right time after the initial test. This could have been improved if we had gotten stakeholders that we used in co creation later to see some of our initial sketched ideas.