Empower Wellness and Financial Center User Experience Boot
Empower Wellness and Financial Center User Experience Boot Camp Out-of-class Assignment Matthew Brown mbrown 74@rocketmail. com
Product Information Product Name Empower Wellness and Financial Center Product purpose Empower is the second-largest retirement services provider in the United States, serving more than 38, 000 plans and 9 million participants. It is focused on retirement, with expertise across all plan types, company sizes and market segments. Empower is contracted to companies and manages retirement plans for individual participants. Within the Empower website is a product currently called "Wellness and Financial Center. " This product is for participants to educate themselves on various financial topics. These include budgeting, buying a house, retirement, and wealth management, among other related financial topics.
Business Goals The Empower Wellness and Financial Center website has several goals it needs to achieve: • Increase value to current participants by having meaningful content. • Improve satisfaction with companies that currently have contracts with Empower. These companies will primarily hear from their employees as to how valuable the product is. • Having a product that becomes valuable to clients who do not currently contract with Empower and differentiates the Empower product from our competitors.
User Personas These personas were partially inspired by a TIAFF-CREF User Research Project 1. This report broke up “participants” into four categories, however it did not go further in depth or present them as personas. The participants interviewed for this project represented these personas and were kept anonymous. Sustained Investors: People who have investments and want to continue. Sustained Investors are the most important persona because this is the largest existing user base. Up and Coming: People who are new to retirement, new to the company, or anticipate major life change that will disrupt their current plan. This is the second most important persona, because they are not yet taking full advantage of our services and Empower wants to move them to the Sustained Investor persona. Almost Retired: People who are preparing to retire. This persona may be moving some or all of their investments or are playing catch up. This represents a smaller user group, therefore rank below Sustained Investors and Up and Coming user personas. Retired: People who are retired and want to plan how to maintain and/or transfer wealth. This persona represents our smaller user base. 1. Razorfish. (2006). TIAFF-CREF User Research Project. Retrieved from http: //www. juliecasanave. com/Design/Assets/sample_docs/TIAA_Personas. pdf
Sustained Investor User Persona Interview results: Mindset Concerns Is accustomed to saving through company offered plans Wants to know how much more to Continue savings and investments save so they can retire comfortably Planning on continued savings Wonders what happens if they could not work suddenly? Optimizing what they are currently doing to get the most from their investments May be settled a bit more in their living situation, not necessarily planning on new home or other large first-time purchase Will they have enough savings to cover medical bills when they retire? Wants to prepare for future major events, like higher education for children and retirement May be interested in moderate risk Will they be able to save enough investments for their children’s college education? Goals Preparing for taking care of aging parents and/relatives
Up and Coming User Persona Interview results: Mindset Concerns Goals Is often a first-time participant in a company savings plan Managing accounts with new spouse Saving for first home May be interested in higher risk investments Will they have quick access to funds Saving for children for major purchases, like a first home or wedding Wants to involve spouse on first time savings Does their company match their savings? Starting out saving for children’s education May not have settled down with a home, may be renting. Establishing a budget Having insurance in case of death or injury to support their spouse or other family member
Almost Retired User Persona Interview results: Mindset Concerns Goals Sees that their career or that of their spouse is winding down May be worried they do not have enough savings for retirement Planning for next major stage of their life Most often interested in low risk investments Will they have enough for medical expenses when they would not be working? Making sure their money is in the right place Looking forward to the future How will Social Security effect their Possibly preparing to sell home lifestyle? Enjoying time with grandchildren If and when they need to sell their home Having enough for future medical expenses.
Retired User Persona Interview results: Mindset Concerns Goals Adjusting to post career lifestyle The cost of health care is the number one expense in retirement Staying on budget so they can continue to enjoy life Most often interested in very low risk investments, such as CDs. Health and wellbeing of them and their spouse Having enough to take care of spouse in case of emergency Living on a budget Will they have enough to give back Creating an estate and wealth to their children? transfer plan Enjoying time with grandchildren and extended family Will their investments continue to Establishing new routines and support them the next 15 -20 years? social activities
Requirements/Work Analysis Sustained Investor Up and Coming Almost Retired • Needs to be able to access the new Assessment Tool to see Assessment Tool to what they should fine if they what they verify that their tune should start out their current plan new plan • Access to articles that talk about retirement, estate planning, and other related topics • Access to articles that talk about saving for college, managing a mortgage, and other related topics • Assessment tool would not apply to this group anymore. • Access to articles that talk about budgeting, buying a first home, and other related topics • Access to articles that talk about retirement, health care costs, and other related topics
Prioritized Requirements 1. The stakeholders had created a new assessment tool, to help people review their financial goals and make plans for the future. The stakeholders wanted this assessment tool to be something that users noticed and used first. 2. Adding in improved content. The previous content was poorly written and did not provide enough depth. This led to Empower purchasing more substantial content from a third party. The new content had to be pulled from the third party sever, it could not just be reformatted into the Learning Center site, due to a contractual agreement. The stakeholders needed this to look like it was a part of the site, even though it technically was not. 3. Updating the name of the product to clear up confusion. The current name is "Wellness and Financial Center". Empower is planning on updating the name to the "Learning Center", because the previous name suggested that the site included information in regards to healthy living, which the site did not. "Wellness" was confusing to participants. 4. Content needed to be put into new buckets. The previous content was arranged in very generic financial topics. The stakeholders wanted the content moved into Life Stage buckets, such as "Retirement planning", "Starting a family", "Emergency savings", "Paying for college", and "Home ownership". The stakeholders believe that this would help the content connect with users on a more human level. 5. The homepage of the Wellness and Financial Center had too much content, and needed to be trimmed and rearranged. 6. The site needed a refreshing new look and needed to continue to be responsive
Usability Test Plan and Script Goals/Objectives Empower wants to test the new Assessment Tool Test to see how easy it is to use the new Empower Learning Center Empower wants to get general opinions as to whether the new look is too distracting Empower wants to understand how well labeled our content is and if it causes confusion Users were tested from the Sustained Investor and Up and Coming User Personas. Participants Balanced mix of genders, balanced mix of ages, people who are at various stages of retirement savings, and comfortable with using a laptop
Usability Test Plan and Script Pre-test Setup Participants were presented an Invision mockup of the new Empower Learning Center: https: //invis. io/NHPBNMS 52 K 6#/340762143_Full. Screen_1 v 2 Pre-test Questions • Tell me a little bit about yourself? • You mentioned to me that you are either actively saving for retirement or just starting on your retirement savings. Tell me a little about what you’re doing to save for retirement? • How long have you been actively working towards this goal? • Does your company offer a retirement plan?
Usability Test Plan and Script Scenario You’ve started a new job and your company uses Empower to manage the retirement plan. You are at your desk and in between tasks. You decide you are going to visit the Empower Learning Center site to see what features it has.
Usability Test Plan and Script Tasks 1. 2. In particular, you hear from a coworker about an interactive 3. The HR person who welcomed you today mentioned that assessment tool that evaluates how you are doing on your there is a series of interactive learning modules on the site. retirement plan. You go to the website. Show me how you You are interested in the Retirement topic in particular and would access the Assessment Tool. want to play all the modules that are available. Show me how you would get to an option that played all the interactive It appears that the site has other features. You want to use a learning modules that pertain to Retirement. calculator to see how much the pension plan will provide in the future. Show me how you would get to the Pension 4. Now you want to focus on just the Savings topic on the Retirement page. How would you just navigate to the “Savings Calculator. Module” specifically. 5. Can you find an article on the Retirement page that specifically refers to how much money you need for the future?
Usability Test Plan and Script Metrics I will be watching for how the user completes tasks, if navigation appears to be difficult, and any errors that happen Post-test Questions Tell me your thoughts about your experience with this site. • What did you like best? What did you like least? If you could wave a magic wand change one thing, what would it be? If you could tell the team NOT to change one thing, what would you want them to keep Is there anything else you want to tell me?
Findings Sustained Investor: • The Sustained Investor participant has been investing since their 20 s. Puts money in Roth and 401 k Plan. • She found the other option for getting to the savings module that I did not expect. • She thought the site had a lot of information and seemed to have a lot of depth in its content • Getting back to the home page was a challenge. A recommendation would be to come up with a solution to make navigation more clear. • Participant recommends keeping the Assessment Tool. She felt that it was a great concept. • • Up and Coming: • The Up and Coming participant graduated from college a year and a half ago. He started contributing to his 401 k plan the day before he took this test. He is planning on high risk investments because he wants a high rate of return. • Again, getting to the pension calculator was challenging for this participant. Will need to make this more prominent on the site. • The participant described the site as having “a ton of articles. ” Seemed to really appreciate that the Retirement Page addressed all his concerns • Participant noted that he would prefer having a budgeting tool on the home page. He struggles with budgeting and is a big concern for him. The participant found the main photo on the home page distracting. Perhaps having a more conservative photo. • Wanted to have a phone number he could call reach a financial advisor. Participant wanted to know if there was a phone number or email to contact Empower. • The participate suggested a search function on the site, in order to more easily find articles that pertained to him.
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