Client: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Date: 2019 to 2020
Who is CFS?
CFS is a leading superannuation fund and the second-largest payer of pensions in Australia. With 1 million members and over $135 billion in funds under management, CFS is transitioning ownership from the Commonwealth Bank to investment firm, KKR in 2020.
Why this project?
The existing website was irrelevant and full of marketing-speak. The poor digital experience reflected the business model: serve a niche market, while financial advisers dominate the mass market.
The Royal Commission reforms created an opportunity to make the business "member lead", to off-set two unsustainable issues:
1. Member retention
2. Cost inefficiencies in support channels
The business had spent a long time talking without action.
I championed immediate progress, collaborating, making, testing and sharing skills and knowledge, centered on a human experience.
Section 1: Overview
The problem
Members are confused by complex, sophisticated concepts such as superannuation, and struggle with fundamental tasks e.g. "I don't know where to find my account number".
The business' ecosystem of digital platforms offered a fragmented and conflicting experience.
The strategic work was developed by Future Friendly:
Inclusive for all Australians.
Make super simple to understand, and simple to self-serve.
Give human support for the harder stuff.
This formed the backbone of the website, and won a Good Design Award. My role was to develop and deliver this work.
The project team
The core team: Experience Designer, Product Owner and Business Analyst. We made real-world progress by planning, progressing and presenting to stakeholders using a 2-week sprints.
The Human-Centered Design team provided research support. I initiated testing requirements, created prototypes and assisted 1-2 researchers. We validated design templates, the information architecture, and members understanding of the core business offerings: super, retirement, investing, insurance and advice.
Content was from a single writer; I moved the tone of voice from marketing to a UX focus by continually vocalising the strategy and research findings.
Digital Design team: I sat with four others assigned to the native app and secure websites. We aligned at bi-weekly check-ins, ensuring a consistent design and experience. A design system was created to continue this alignment.
Development was off-shore and ad-hoc support came from change, the graphic design studio and subject-matter experts.
The tools
Figma, Sketch, Zeplin.
Within the Commonwealth Bank building on CBA machines and CBA proxies, technology was constrained.
Methodology
There were many opportunities to introduce better processes, as a "user-lead" approach to design was a relatively new concept to the business.
A modified double-diamond framework suited the environment:
Discover → Define → Develop → Refine → Build.
Discover
• Who are we solving the problem for?
• How might we (intended action) for (persona) so that (desired outcome).
• Review data analytics, competitor analysis, etc.
Define
• Set a clear direction on what problem to solve
• Create flows, interviews and pain point analysis
• I am (persona) trying to (verb) but (barrier) because (cause) which makes me feel (reaction)
Develop
• Co-design potential solutions
• Sketches, wireframes, prototypes
• Usability tests, A/B, surveys, and iterate
Refine
• Align the solution to the Design System
• Responsive design, accessibility
• Create Figma components, images, icons, etc.
Build
• Detailed specifications
• Design QA
• Track enhancements post-launch
The strategy
The strategic groundwork and early product development expanded my skills. The "3 Horizons" approach provided structure to the delivery:
Horizon 1: Laying the member-driven foundations. Make it easier for members to find information and complete fundamental tasks.
Horizon 2: Broaden member views of super and retirement. Deepen understanding and connect members to retirement outcomes.
Horizon 3: Connect members to their retirement through advice. Escalation from digital support to human guidance and financial advice by digitising forms with better search, support and tools.
Much of the strategic work involved up-skilling stakeholders on why to use templates, creating content with purpose, and establishing processes which are less reactionary and more user-lead.
"How Might We"
I leaned heavily on the following statements to guide the work of the project:
1. How might we help members find information relevant to them?
2. How might we help members understand what they can do?
3. How might we help reduce friction for members to act?
Section 2: The work
Horizon 1: Lay the foundations
Instead of using a "Prototype → Beta→ Live" approach to building a website, the strategy called for replacing and updating the foundational pages first.
These pages were the endpoint; they contain only information specific to that task or topic.
Delivering designs: Release 1 and 2 were generally well researched; my initial time was spent being a visual designer:
• creating responsive designs across XL, L, M, S breakpoints
• creating specifications
• supporting the off-shore development team
• testing and design QA
• establishing a foundational UI library
• creating design principles
I used A0 foam boards to make a visual information architecture, complete with templates and summaries of content on each page, and dragged these to meetings to ensure everyone was on the same level; an IA that's hidden away on a spreadsheet isn't useful.
Process: I identified missed opportunities in terms of process; content governance, website feedback and using data to make design decisions.
I promoted an inclusive and mobile-first approach to design and simplified where possible within the complex business. Regular check-ins with the design team ensured each digital touch-point would benefit from research findings that were realised on the public website.
I established a content writing process, and principles such as prioritising plain English, starting with a user story for every page, establishing acceptance criteria and making sure a writer was at the first conversation for anything new.
Horizon 2: Broaden views of super and retirement
With the foundational work delivered, I moved onto creating pathways to get to the new content; the homepage, landing and bundle pages.
These pages contain broad information with highly visible actions designed for members to quickly access a pathway to task/topic completion.
Strategy
• Each template started by identifying intentions, then presenting these as components, then wireframes and increasing fidelity toward visual designs
• Validated in research, by asking people what information they expected to find on a page
Research
• I assisted with card sorts, making sure our information architecture made sense
• Researchers from the Human Centered Design team conducted interviews (virtual and in-person)
• I translated these findings into visual designs, and re-validated with the Human Centered Design team and their own on-going work with personas, member journeys, etc.
Design
• Prototypes for testing
• Visual design
• Specifications and QA with development
• Contribution to the Design System
• Supporting regulatory requirement projects, e.g. Portfolio Holdings Disclosure
Horizon 3: Connect members to their retirement through advice
With the transfer of ownership from Commonwealth Bank to KKR, priorities within the business changed. A brand refresh didn't materialise, and many contracts were not renewed, including mine. This work will hopefully continue in some way throughout 2020.
To provide the most value, my time was spent on:
• Reviewing data analytics to ensure we were designing to the viewports mostly used by our members
• Making the components responsive
• Fixing previously missed specifications from the off-shore development team
• Proposing ways Adobe Experience Manager could connect to Confluence, so publishers have better visibility over the strategy work
• Proposing pre-populated components in templates
• Surfacing past, relevant research findings
• Validating a navigation item which contains information that could live in multiple areas of the site
• Campaign and article template
• Displaying high-resolution images
• Standardising interaction elements
The CFS Design System and project level-up
A design system is only as good as how well it is adopted by developers. With external support to put together the Design System, I made sure the public website was accurately represented.
Most of my existing specifications were levelled up; each component was now defined in terms of anatomy, options, behaviours, usage guidelines, content guidelines, animation, and accessibility and keyboard interactions. Each component now matched in look and feel, with the native app and secure transactional site. At least in design - it will be many months for the developers to align, but at least the groundwork is there.
Section 3: The results
There was little appetite from the business to directly validate the success of the design at this stage of the project, but through data analytics, the picture is very positive:
• 10% increase in website satisfaction via investment trends
• 1 in 10 homepage clicks is a either "check balance" or "view statements", meaning we are addressing the key actions in the right spot.
• 33% to 8% bounce rate reduction of the homepage, meaning website visitors are finding useful information
• 90% increase in unique visits to FAQs (home to new support content)
• 82% increase in page visits to FAQs (home to new support content)
• Increase of return visits from 30% to 43%
Additionally:
• Adoption of the content concepts internally means a shift in how CFS considers valuable content and its usefulness for the member
• The website receives 100k/month visits, of which 60k are unique visits, suggesting we don't need to drive traffic; people are visiting
“By taking a holistic business-wide approach to the our digital channel transformation we can deliver a consistent, cohesive end-to-end member experience, address known business challenges, and enable a personalised, scalable service model.”
- Neil Devine, Head of Insights, Design and Digital
“Increasingly we are solving problems in a combined, cross-functional way that brings diverse teams together. These teams rally behind solving our members' needs end-to-end and ensure we can better realise our purpose, to “Help our members achieve their individual retirement goals.”
- Todd Stevenson, Chief Customer Officer
Thanks for reading.
Next, read about the information for job seekers website project and the potential to help millions of Australians.