
GIG FINANCE
Research, Responsive Redesign & Usability Testing to Increase Digital Creatives’ Ability to Find & Open a Retirement Account
PROJECT SUMMARY
Gig Finance is focused on helping full-time freelancers/independent contractors build financial security.
Currently, the focus is to pair visitors to a retirement account that is best for their business and financial situation and minimizes their taxes.
I needed to improve the click through rate on the retirement account options page through a responsive redesign.
I redesigned the retirement account options page by completing competitive analysis and developing wireframes, mockups and interactions to help digital creatives find and open a retirement account.
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
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Competitive Analysis
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Experience Design
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Prototyping & Usability Testing
TIMELINE
Initially a Two-week Sprint that expanded to 4 weeks
TEAM
A remote collaboration with the Founder & Head of Design
RESEARCH & COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
From the redesign of the landing page, my evaluation of a focus group interview of a prior iteration and competitors and comparators brought out opportunities to improve the design in terms of inspiring safety, trust and understanding.
I determined to increase conversions by establishing trust through consistency, following best practices and creating clear messaging.
“Inconsistency doesn’t make me feel safe, comfortable.”
- Focus Group Participant
“I want a money advisor who is going to have proper gravitas.”
- Focus Group Participant

Competitive Analysis
PRE REDESIGN
The Founder prioritized what he wanted to keep from the original design based on prior testing and interactions with potential users.

Request: keep majority of the content from the current design.
CHOOSING A DIRECTION
I initially decided to explore how account comparison could be best presented by using elements from the landing page redesign I did prior to this project with the hope of maintaining consistency.

Working with elements from the redesigned landing page.
ITERATIVE DESIGN
I decided to keep the traditional table format and work through a number of changes to the hierarchy of information and visual design to give users additional support in understanding the best retirement account for them to open.

Spotlighting the recommended account.

Third Iteration Design
After thinking through a few hierarchy and visual changes, we decided to add additional information to provide users more support in making the decision about what account is right for them.

SCOPE CHANGE & USABILITY TEST
The Founder decided he wanted to surface the banking/financial institution options with affiliate links from the company's blog posts. Additionally, he conducted a quick usability test with a target user who mentioned it was difficult to quickly compare accounts.
With this scope change and test result, I had to determine how to make the accounts easier to compare and how to surface bank options.

Scope Change
New function of the page added: incorporate affiliate links to bank options.

Considerations
As I explored options to surface the affiliate links, I would keep these questions in mind.
EXPLORING SOLUTIONS FOR SURFACING BANK OPTIONS
I explored surfacing the bank options through six iterations.
Using accordions to surface the banking options.

Using accordions to surface the banking options and tabs for the account types to shorten the page.


Using tabs to surface banking options by various account types.

I ultimately ended up surfacing banks through a modal.
FURTHER ITERATION THROUGH USABILITY TESTING
After choosing a modal to surface banking options and updating a few visual elements, we conducted remote, unmoderated usability testing through Maze to determine if users could find the banking options.


Usability test results.

Final Suggestions
After analyzing the data from the remote, unmoderated usability tests, I made final suggests to improve the desktop design.

Results of the second usability test with suggested improvements implemented. Task completion increased.
MOBILE DESIGN DEVELOPMENT
With our desktop design in place, I moved into translating our desktop choices to mobile-friendly choices.

TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
LESSONS LEARNED
This project was an excellent exercise in being flexible for the needs of the business. Design was used to support efforts to educate users and monetize the work the company was doing to support that education.