Merrill Guided Investing​
Summer 2020 was the summer of flexibility and making the best of all situations. It was a summer of awareness, activism, and social responsibility, all of which I continue to learn more about today. In light of the ongoing social movements in the United States, I wanted my project to align with my values, and guide people towards more socially responsible practices.
As an experience design intern on the Merrill Guided Investing team, I conducted user and competitor research about impact investing, synthesized my results and findings, defined opportunities for improvement, and presented my recommendations and research process to the senior leadership in Bank of America's Experience Design division.
I worked on content strategy, page hierarchy, and user flows along the Merrill Guided Investing Onboarding process, focusing on discovering and understanding why the majority of users glossed over the "Impact Investing" portfolio option.
*my research, findings, and work is confidential and belongs to Bank of America. I am only able to describe my work at a very high level, unless it has been released.
Challenges
Time
Originally intended to be a 10 week internship, my experience was shortened to 5 weeks because of COVID. In a very short amount of time there was a lot to explore and learn about the company, the people, the processes, and the products. I had to make sure every second counted, and that I was delivering value in short time.
Understanding
Coming into the Merrill Guided Investing Team, I was relatively unfamiliar with investing terminology. My initial gaps in understanding as a potential investing customer helped better phrase investing lingo to be digestible to the average reader and listener.
Working Online
Collaboration is key to creating the best experiences and products for customers, but I was only able to meet with my team for 30 min - 1 hour each day. I conducted all of my work remotely, and I spent a lot of time condensing findings and writing content on my own. I utilized the time with my team to gather feedback, ask questions, and ensure my project was useful to Merrill, business wise, and beneficial to its customers.
Process
1. Understand
Working with user researchers and content strategists, I crafted research goals and designed a survey to be implemented in User Zoom. I had to figure out how to best ask each question, in terms of precise language and the type of answer (multiple choice, rank, rating scale, matrix, etc.)
​
After receiving 150 survey responses, I collected the results and findings mainly by creating and filtering different subgroups and comparing how those subgroups answered questions differently compared to others and the general population. For example, observing how higher versus lower income respondents gave different answers to certain survey questions.
​
I also better understood the guided investing landscape through researching competitors and how they offered the equivalent services of MGI. I was able to see if any failures or confusions I had in understanding a competitor's product was something that occurred with a potential Merrill customer as well.
2. Define
With all of my findings and results, I needed to make sense of them. I spent a few days connecting my findings and insights and translating the information into design decisions. I was able to draw out three recommendations to help drive more users to impact focused investing for MGI, and to make the onboarding process simpler and easier to understand.
I mainly dealt with content strategy: language, placement of content, and creating an intuitive user flow. I made sure to connect each of these recommendations to specific parts of the user journey, explain why they address pain points from the survey, and how the new content piques more interest and understanding in impact investing.
3. Make
In my last week, I crafted a presentation to present my findings and recommendations, and created low-fidelity prototypes with invision freehand and sketch. If I had more time, I would begin building out higher-fidelity prototypes and launching usability tests to see if my recommendations actually addressed the initial pain points I found from the survey. I would also measure for user's understanding and confidence in their actions as they click through the prototypes.
Released Recommendations
Highlight that MGI offers socially responsible investment approaches
Following my recommendations, Merrill highlighted their socially responsible investment portfolio option on the homepage. Many users were unaware of what impact investing was and more information about it was not easily accessible. Introducing it on the homepage is the first step for awareness, helps inform customers of potential options, and allows them to connect MGI with socially responsible investing.
Explore new language for "impact investing"
Across other investment banks and platforms, there's no universal term for portfolios that are "socially responsible." Companies use terms such as "Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)," "value-aligned," "sustainable," and more. While "ESG" is a common industry term, many casual investors are unfamiliar with the term and do not know what it stands for, so perhaps different terminology would resonate more with users and allow them to better understand the impact focused portfolio option.
August 2020
March 2022
Tools
Userzoom
I became UserZoom certified during my internship. Userzoom is a great platform to design surveys, usability tests, click tests, and more, to reach the right audiences for your product.
Invision Freehand
I used freehand to map out my thinking and create diagrams, charts, and webs to understand the product space and survey results. I was able to gradually connect my findings to recommendations with quantitative and qualitative evidence.
Sketch
Sketch surfaced in the last week of my internship when I was building out a few new screens for one of my recommendations. I was able to follow Bank of America design patterns to showcase my recommendations.
Project Learnings
Synthesize information across different methods
​
My research encompassed more than just the survey results and competitive analysis. Combined with page analytics and Merrill Edge client data, I was able to connect themes across these four sections of data to present comprehensive recommendations supported with evidence from several different methods.
Know who you work with
​
Cameras on and small talk is so important to connect with people virtually. It was hard initially to open up and feel comfortable meeting people for the first time in a virtual environment, but people can feel the warmth and energy through video. It's important to spread every bit of positivity possible when we're all remote.
​
Present the connections
​
From survey findings, to competitive analysis, and all the information I gathered, initially, it was all disorganized. Without connection, every finding seemed random or irrelevant. I spent the majority of my time organizing information into buckets. Every step of the way, through potential survey questions, research goals, survey findings, competitor findings, quantitative analytics, and more, similar threads were showing up. I drew out themes and overarching issues and connected evidence to specific opportunities. When presenting to leadership, people could clearly follow the story, and how all the pieces fit together.