Elevating financial wellness
Standard Life
2023
Product Design
The challenge
Turn a static, one-size-fits-all guidance section into something human, relevant, and useful, so people can make better pension decisions at different life stages.
My Role
Senior UX Designer, embedded in a cross-functional squad for 6 months.
Owned discovery, strategy, prototyping, testing, handover, and partnered with content and mobile teams to ship.
Impact
+61% engagement: monthly page views rose from 25k to 47k after launch.
Target smashed: exceeded a 12-month 200k goal with 570k projected views.
Closer to the mission: guidance became useful, personalised, and measurable, not generic.
What I did
Audit: reviewed analytics, previous research, and live content; identified low-relevance topics for younger users.
Defined segments that matter: with a research agency, observed interviews and shaped four life-stage segments (Starting Out, Growth, Preparing for Retirement, Accessing Pension Funds).
Aligned stakeholders: facilitated a stakeholder workshop to map guides/tools to segments using evidence from qual insights and top tasks.
Prototyped the MVP: tested two rounds with users; evaluated personalised guidance and tool placement.
Designed for scale: collaborated with content design, ensured WCAG AA, partnered with mobile to adapt for iOS.
Key design solutions
Lead with what users value: the pension pot projection consistently outperformed “compare with others,” so we made it the hero entry point.
Personalise by life stage: surfaced relevant tools and articles per segment (not just age).
Make progress visible: introduced ‘Your story’ insight on the main page to increase visibility and re-engagement.
Information architecture: simplified navigation and naming so people can find, understand, and act.
Constraints I navigated
Static legacy content: restructured without a full CMS rebuild.
Multiple content owners: aligned tone, accuracy, and approvals across teams.
Regulatory & accessibility: kept copy clear, compliant, and AA-accessible.
This case study is part of my public portfolio.
Some of my most impactful projects are confidential, I can share them privately on request.