Reimagining the Buy Flow
T. Rowe Price
Our mission was to create a more intuitive transactional experience that builds confidence in our clients.
The redesign increased conversion by 14% versus the legacy experience and unexpectedly increased the amount being contributed.
Added features include the ability to do multiple trades at a time, contribute to current and prior year's IRA, and add a bank in the flow.
Zero-Based Design
A human-centered process for problem-solving around specific
business needs and user pain points.
Through our ZBD process, we collaborated with clients and SME's throughout the project.
Our SME's have spent time on the phones, in the back office and in other important roles that helped us gain a greater
understanding of the challenges we needed to overcome to create a seamless solution.
User Workshops
Gaining empathy through listening and co-creating with our clients.
During our initial Discovery Phase we worked with users to uncover pain points, jobs to be done, personal processes/phases,
and develop solutions to their personal experiences and challenges.
Developing Personas
Reimagining the Buy Flow
Stepping users through the Buy Flow in three easy steps
User workshops showed that clients wanted a stepped process or a “wizard” to walk them through investing. We tested how much info would overwhelm or distract and discovered that most users come into the "buy flow" knowing what they want to purchase. Too much information distracted from the task at hand and seemed to restart the research process for users.
Step 1 let users select their bank or add a new one. We moved the bank selection to the first step instead of the end of the transaction since we noticed that users sometimes had problems with this step. We wanted users to fail fast instead of selecting funds and amount to later fail at the bank stage.
Optimized for a more efficient work flow and multiple transactions.
During our user workshops and in speaking with TRP client service reps, we identified a need to perform multiple transactions in one transaction.
Users can also ensure they meet their annual IRA contribution limit and can easily split contributions between funds.
A final review before submitting a transaction.
We found that users wanted to review their purchase before submitting. This step allowed them to see their estimated trade date, confirm amounts and verify the bank being used in the transaction.
On the confirmation page users are given a confirmation number and popular links that users frequent after submitting a trade.
Adding a Bank
Research during our initial phases revealed another opportunity for improvements
when adding a bank to complete a transaction.
Keeping users focused on their task.
We found that users would start a transaction then exit to add their bank to return days later after they had verified micro-deposits. This disrupted users and kept them from buying at the time and price they wanted.
Our solution was to create an experience that could sit on top of any transaction flow to keep users focused on their task. We were able to implement Plaid, a third party api, to allow users to easily sync their bank to their T. Rowe account by logging in to their bank with their username and password. Users could then immediately use their bank to transfer funds to place their purchase.
Offer users a way to quickly recover in the case that they are unable to link their bank.
We also wanted to ensure that if users were having trouble with the Plaid process they could easily transition to entering their bank information manually and bypass the micro-deposit verification process for a one-time buy.
Evolving the Design System
While evolving transactional flows, there was a need to add components to the design system. We created components and patterns for stepped processed, toasts, additional card types, editable tables, and more.
Contribution Cards
Asset Allocation Cards
Feedback Messaging
