Making complex financial decisions understandable
Proposition and experience work in a regulated, high-stakes environment where customer confidence, compliance and trust set the boundaries of what good design can be.
Role - Proposition and design strategy lead
Context
Hargreaves Lansdown serves a very wide range of investors, from confident self-directed customers to people making a single significant decision they will live with for decades.
The challenge
Support of this kind sits in a narrow space between generic information and regulated advice. It has to be genuinely useful without overstepping - a design constraint and a legal one at the same time.
What I noticed or reframed
The barrier was rarely a lack of information. It was the absence of a trustworthy way to know whether a choice applied to someone like them.
My role
Proposition and design strategy: framing customer needs, shaping the proposition with the team, and using prototyping to turn an abstract regulatory and commercial debate into something that could be put in front of real people.
What we did
- Defined the customer needs the proposition had to meet
- Made complex financial choices legible through prototypes
- Tested comprehension and confidence, not just usability
- Designed innovation inside regulatory constraints rather than around them
Results and evidence
Client-sensitive work; specific outcomes are held back. What is publishable is the approach: responsible innovation in an environment where being wrong has consequences for people's money.
Lessons and continuing questions
Prototypes are the fastest way to end a circular strategy conversation - especially one where everyone in the room is being careful.