CASE STUDY
Taking the guess work out of the Financial Advice Industry’s Professional Year.
New entrants to the financial advice industry are legally required to first complete a ‘Professional Year’. The multitude of requirements are confusing and difficult to track by entrants and licensees who are tasked with guidance and assessment. Everyone interprets the requirements differently and tracks them with makeshift spreadsheets. There had to be an easier way…
tl;dr
In 2020 TAL Insurance wanted to explore a digital product that would make it easier for the tracking, assessment and completion of the many requirements in the Professional Year.
We conducted nine interviewed across the three different user types (Licensees, Supervisors and Candidates), which gave us a view into their motivations, workflows and pain points.
After charting and categorising the findings, we identified two key areas in which we could provide the most value:
Visibility of progress
Quick and easy time logging
I created a high level, end-to-end solution map, identifying key areas for an MVP. With client approval I then designed a mid-fidelity prototype to demonstrate the key workflows within Candidate and Licensee portals.
I conducted concept validation interviews with three licensees and one candidate, where I presented and discussed the prototype. All participants reacted positively and suggested that they would rather use this product than their current tools and workflow.
We’ve established pre-product validation and can now begin our first round of development and user testing.
Discovery, concept ideation and validation
Role: Lead designer
Several UX methods were undertaken to build our understanding of PY process, requirements and user types. From these, we derived assumptions and insights that we applied in the design of a solution concept and presented back to users for validation.
Methods:
Interview charting and analysis
Solution mapping
Concept design and prototyping
Concept validation interviews
Initial client discovery
Review of current PY tools
Entity relationship diagram (ERD)
User discovery interviews
User Segmentation
PY Candidate - Candice
Also referred to as a ‘New Entrant’, Candice is required to complete quarterly requirements such as logging daily work experience, relevant training, sitting exams, personal reflection and exploring ethical dilemmas.
The biggest challenge for Candice is the daily logging of her work experience. Several details are required, making this a time consuming task which disrupts her workflow. Some details are difficult to ascertain, so she fudges them.
Often Candice will put off logging time for a couple of weeks, making it a sizeable and stressful task which generates inaccurate recording of details.
We can best support Candice by:
Making time logging quick and easy
Making her progress visible
Making it easy to request review/help
Supervisor - Sue
A Supervisor is often a senior member of a financial practice. Sue must mentor the Candidate throughout the PY, with a great deal of supervision in the first half of the year. She must also assess the Candidate at the end of each quarter and sign off on their competency across a wide number of areas.
The challenge for some Sue is that she is time-poor. Because of this, she can only manage one Candidate at a time. While she values the ability to mentor, Sue is often too busy to keep an eye on the progress of specific PY requirements.
We can best support Sue by:
Making the Candidate’s progress visible
Streamlining the assessment process
Identifying when a Candidate is falling behind or needs help.
Licensee - Leigh
Licensees are the gate keepers of the financial advice industry. They are tasked with ensuring that Candidates comply with the requirements of PY and are legally responsible if if they were to release an incompetent Candidate into the industry. They often oversee multiple Candidates across different advice practices at once.
The biggest challenge for Leigh is the need to keep track of all Candidates’ progress at a high level, and be able to quickly understand how an individual Candidtate is progressing at a granular level. He must also be confident that the Candidate has sufficient competence and compliance with financial regulations when signing off on them.
We can best support Leigh by:
Making the Candidates’ progress visible at a both collective and granular levels
Streamlining the assessment process
Identifying when a Candidate is falling behind or needs help.
Initial client discovery
Over a series of discussions with the TAL team we developed a general understanding of the landscape of the financial advice industry, the rationale behind the PY and key user types.
Review of Current PY Tools
We reviewed the multitude of PY tools (documents) that each Licensee provides in order to understand how these currently facilitate the various requirements of the PY.
Our key learning here was that FASEA provides basic spreadsheets as tools, but every Licensee intreprets and conducts the process differently, hacking supplied spreadsheets or creating their own to record and track requirements.
Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)
We produced an ERD (also known as a concept model) to capture our understanding of the connectivity and relationship between entities (people, requirements, documents, etc) within the system.
(This is somewhat related to Object Oriented UX, created by Sophia Prater which I’ve become quite interested it lately. It’s a great tool for understanding the IA of the product and using this to improve the UI design).
User Discovery Interviews
In conjunction with my Managing Director, I conducted nine interviews across Licensees, Supervisors and Candidates to build our understanding of the motivations, workflows and pain points for each user type.
We were also able to identify common needs and varying interpretations of the FASEA requirements across each Licensee group (Affinia, IOOF, Fortnum and Madison).
Interview Charting and Analysis
I documented the interviews, breaking down our findings by task and problem type for analysis. I identified two key areas of the PY where we could provide the most value to users:
1. Visibility of progress
The ability for all users clearly see the Candidate’s progress across the year and within each quarter.
2. Quick and easy time logging
The ability for a Candidate to quickly and easily log Experience hours, in a way that minimizes disruption of their daily tasks.
Solution Mapping
I created a high level solution map (20,000 ft view) which communicates the breadth of an end-to-end solution. I identified the key value areas (logging time and tracking progress) that should be focus of our ‘Phase one’ design and any areas that would be required to support them.
This map was used to generate alignment across the team/stakeholders and direct our upcoming design efforts.
Concept Design, Prototyping and Validation Interviews
I designed a mid-fidelity prototype of the product which demonstrated the key workflows within Candidate and Licensee portals.
I conducted interviews with four Licensees and one Candidate, in which I presented and discussed the prototype. The aim of this was to validate our assumptions about the users’ needs and gauge whether the product provided sufficient value that they would consider adopting it.
The response was positive, with all Licensees communicating that they would rather use this than the current tools. The Candidate expressed optimism in the product and suggested that the time logging was headed in the right direction, but couldn’t state definitively whether it would encourage him to log time within his daily workflow. As the product moves into development we’ll need to conduct further iteration and testing in order to optimise the time loggging feature.
The Alliance team consistently demonstrates a high level of technical capability but more importantly, they share our vision for success. They remain approachable and are able to deliver a strong balance between the technical system requirements and the user experience.
— Jason Bamford National Sales Development Manager, TAL
Outcomes and next steps
This project has advanced TAL’s understanding of the needs and problems that exist within the Professional Year. Ulimately a product that is easy to use for Candidates will generate more timely and accurate data entry, increased ease of tracking and assessment for Supervisors and Licensees, and better professionals who have experienced appropriate training and oversight at the end of the PY.
Furthermore it has whet the appetite of prospective customers, with Licensees expressing huge levels of anticipation for this product to be rolled out.
Hindsight
I found this project to be energising and satisfying. TAL’s embracing of user research allowed us to validate our assumptions and make truly informed design decisions. I look forward to working with more clients who value user research this highly.