Enhancing and unifying the myMAWER portal messaging
Overview
Communication in the myMAWER portal experience was improved through various enhancements and additional front end components.
Stakeholder interviews identified key messaging needs to effectively inform users about promotions, insights, new features, data issues, and emergencies.
Role
UX Designer - writing, wireframing, requirements gathering, defining processes, UI design, design and functionality testing
Team
Client Experience Lead, Chief Marketing Officer, Communications Specialist, Business Analyst, MISC Dept. stakeholders, Engineers, QA Specialists
Project lifecycle
6mo
Background
The myMAWER portal was designed for an ultra-high-net-worth client segment in the private wealth and institutional investing space. Clients use it to review their investment performance, holdings, transactions, documents, and related insights that add value to their investment experience.
Additional context
The portal’s messaging experience needed more than a carousel to capture user attention and convey information effectively. New components to handle different types of messaging, adjustments to existing components for consistency and language refinement were desperately needed items to enhance the overall messaging experience.
Goal
We asked ourselves how might we create a messaging system with clear guidelines and best practices for our teams while delivering a thoughtful client experience.
Getting started by jumping off the deep end
To ensure we were on the right path, we began by auditing our user communication, using the findings as a first step for gathering stakeholder input.
The audit
Beyond the carousel, which was limited in displaying insights and investor education, we found most communication occurred as feedback through user action.
Identifying opportunities
We used the preliminary findings as an aid in a broader stakeholder discussion to flush out pain points and messaging needs from various teams.
- The marketing carousel lacked distinction between promotions-focused content like events, announcements, and newsletters
- The overuse of the marketing carousel for ALL content caused user fatigue
- Competing priorities and low visibility of content calendars created stakeholder friction
- Cautionary data related messages like unavailable statements or stale data warnings needed visibility
- No way to highlight sections by emphasizing navigation items or individual screen elements
- No clear ownership related workflow to deliver maintenance/failover messaging
- Existing communications related UI was inconsistent
- No way to highlight emergency messaging
- Language for success/failed messaging was harsh, inconsistent and blamed the end user
- Clear documentation and processes were needed for overall in-experience communication
Project principles
The discussions helped us refine execution principles that would guide all teams.
Timely, concise and personalized
Messaging should be timely, provide enough relevant information and be targeted where appropriate.
Respect end user experience
Messaging should be non-intrusive when possible to avoid interrupting client intent unless critical.
Consistent and proportionate language
Messaging should be consistent across web & app and use case should reflect the amount and tone.
Project stages
We broke down the project in three phases to stay focused on our deliverables.
Phase 1 - Adjust what’s already there
Adjust existing components from a consistency standpoint, enhance where appropriate and adjust the language.
Phase 2 - Deliver additional components
Create and deliver net new components that add value for different teams.
Phase 3 - Educate stakeholders
Streamline the messaging processes and educate the stakeholders.
Rolling up the ol’ sleeves
Phase 1 - Adjust what’s already there
We began with the marketing carousel, visible on Account Summary, Account Detail Views, and in a marquee format on the Learn section.
Content
- CTAs didn’t add to the intuitive nature of clicking/tapping
- Content lacked identification to distinguish what the content category might be
- Title didn’t add value
- Additional context missing through a short description on Account Summary where users have the highest engagement
Aesthetics
- Lacked legible contrast between text and image
- Over-hanging UI didn’t fit brand guidelines
- UI for CTAs was inconsistent
Proposed State
Content
- CTAs were omitted however, a ‘Read Transcript’ text link was included specifically for podcast content
- Content category identifiers were included to give the end user an idea of what type of content they would be consuming
- Content categories were supplemented with a custom field for flexible authorship
- Short description added on Account Summary to take further advantage of high-click-through rate
Aesthetics
- Increased legibility through high contrast between text and background
- Over-hanging UI reigned in to fit brand guidelines
Phase 1 cont'd - Adjust what’s already there
Next, we tackled inconsistent UI and language as quick wins for modals and error handling.
Modals
Modals were used for tours, user-initiated selections, confirmations, prompts, and inactive session handling. An inventory revealed that consistent content hierarchy and aesthetics across modals would help create a pattern based visual user experience.
Content
- Titles were inconsistently aligned, centered vs. left
- CTA alignments were inconsistent, centered vs. right
Aesthetics
- Inconsistent title, CTA and closing treatments
Proposed State
Content
- Left aligned title and content
- Right aligned CTAs
Aesthetics
- Consistent title, CTA and closing treatments
Success/failed messaging
Success and error messaging needed consistency in UI and language. There was also room to improve error handling and user guidance. Notable examples are shown below.
Phase 2 - Deliver additional components
We analyzed the findings from our stakeholder discussions and identified three components to address pain points for different teams.
Banners
The banner would serve two roles with distinct UI sets: one for marketing promotions and the other for cautionary messages from the data team, like stale data or unavailable statements. In both cases, hierarchical dominance was essential, particularly for data-related issues.
Popovers
Popovers would serve as a tool for the client experience team to highlight new navigation sections or features that might be overlooked during rollout.
Modular Modal
The modular modal would handle a range of use cases, from urgent emergencies to feature additions or promotions requiring disruption in the user experience.
Phase 2 cont'd - Deliver additional components
Here’s a snapshot of all net-new components in high-fidelity extrapolated for varying application.
Phase 3 - Educate stakeholders
To tie everything together, we delivered key education and process materials to add value across teams, focusing on in-experience messaging. We then presented these pieces in a roadshow for further discussion and buy-in.
A shared content calendar
More content input from different teams meant that a shared content calendar would provide a snapshot of what’s to come and net new content ideas to discuss.
Distribution framework
A content distribution repository was created to help teams understand available components, their level of intrusiveness, and use cases for deciding what and how to communicate.
Did it make a difference?
The impact of the entire endeavor included measurable statistics, along with some intangible benefits.
- 27% increase in conversion rate from promotions based components to increase the Art of Boring subscribership
- 58% quarter over quarter increase in traffic to sections promoted via popover, such as ‘Documents’ during tax season
- 34% quarter over quarter increase in the click-through rate for marketing carousel
- 7% quarter over quarter increase in event attendance through promotions based components
- Clear process around distribution to reduce friction between teams
- Multiple net new components available for appropriate and timely messaging contributing to an informed client experience
Designer lesson log
Culture fuels exceptional work
Multiple people from different teams being candid and having healthy discussions around what is or isn’t important while adhering to company values makes design work easier.
Strategic phasing has better outcomes
Shelving design work and phasing it in based on overall experience impact while managing resource constraints is beneficial for the entire team.
Going beyond the deliverables
With components and processes defined, I began envisioning the next steps in the evolution of in-experience messaging. I realized that while we were communicating through the myMAWER experience, we lacked a way to actively gather feedback from users.
In other words, communication is and should always be a two-way street!
Although these explorations to acquire feedback didn’t see the light of day, they kickstarted discussions about how might we supplement or get rid of our CSAT surveys and instead lean on something more contextual through the experience itself.
Hearty acknowledgements
It was a great experience to apply my UX writing skills alongside talented individuals who mastered the right voice and tone for messaging.
The BA and QA teams were instrumental in deepening my understanding of functional requirements and the authorship experience for various components.
It’s incredible what teams can accomplish when they have the right people committed to refining their craft.