A system people entered only when forced
The real competition wasn't another product - it was WhatsApp and a phone call.
Advisors Arena is part of a full ecosystem - it connects with the client app and the bank's systems, so advisor, client, and banker communicate through the same platform. In practice, that wasn't happening. The existing system was slow, unintuitive, and didn't fully meet advisors' needs - so they did what worked: phone calls and WhatsApp to the banker.
The solution was to build a system that gives each user exactly what they need to see - and turn the platform into a place worth opening, not just a place to submit a form.
End-to-end ownership inside a bank-wide program
This project sits inside a larger bank digital acceleration program - a multi-track initiative moving core banking services onto new digital infrastructure. I owned the advisor arena track end-to-end.
Discovery of the existing system → user research and competitive analysis → concept presentation tied to the bank's broader strategy → UX and UI design of the happy flow → user testing → iteration across rainy-day flows → ongoing development collaboration. A second round of testing is planned before launch.
Ongoing development collaboration - I worked alongside engineering throughout the build, not just at handoff: reviewing implementation against spec, flagging edge cases as they surfaced, and adjusting design decisions in response to technical constraints.
Logins were minimal and concentrated around specific actions
We started with quantitative usage data and existing advisor feedback provided by the bank, which painted a clear picture: logins were minimal and concentrated around specific actions only. In parallel, we conducted an extensive competitive analysis mapping how similar platforms solve the same problems.
"They only logged in when they had no choice."
Three users, three views, one adaptive home
Every view was designed around the same test: does this replace a WhatsApp message?
The key strategic move was to stop designing for a generic "advisor." The system needed to serve three distinct users with fundamentally different needs - and one of them didn't exist in the old platform at all.
Firm owner - manages a team of advisors, needs portfolio-level visibility across the whole firm. In the old system they shared a single login with their team because the platform had no concept of a firm. The new system gives them their own view - with an account switcher to drop into their personal advisor mode when they work files themselves.
Experienced advisor - manages 15-20 files a month, needs workload clarity at a glance. The dashboard surfaces what changed today, which files need action, and upcoming meetings with file status attached.
Junior advisor - fewer files, still building their workflow. The same home screen surfaces a tools panel instead of a dense dashboard - the same platform behaving differently based on where the advisor is in their career.
A hierarchy of three zoom levels
Firm, workload, file - each answering a different question.
The solution is a hierarchy of three zoom levels - each answering a different question.
But first - a foundational architectural change. In the old system, every file was a standalone entity. I recommended rebuilding around the client as the central entity, with their files sitting beneath them. This changed how advisors manage their work - instead of searching for files, they look at clients.
At the firm level, the owner sees all advisors, all files, workload distribution, and recent activity - replacing the shared-login workaround with real multi-user structure.
At the workload level, the advisor sees a status dashboard across all active files: what changed, what's missing, what needs action. A visual summary of 6 status categories means the answer to "where do things stand?" is visible in one glance.
At the file level, every document, approval, interest rate breakdown, and next step lives in one place - shared across advisor, client, and banker. The splitter feature, built new for this project, lets advisors upload and split documents directly in the platform.
Because this was a net-new capability with no existing pattern to reference, I worked closely with the engineering team through the build - reviewing intermediate versions, resolving ambiguous states, and adjusting flows as technical constraints emerged. This close loop shows up in the results: the splitter was the single feature that received unanimous positive feedback in testing.
Alongside these views: a meetings page that shows file status per appointment, a full client list with cross-file visibility, and a statistics module - new to this platform.
User testing: We ran user testing with 7 advisors across different profiles - solo and firm-based, junior and experienced. The findings validated the strategic direction and sharpened it: navigation and structure worked well, and the splitter received an unambiguous response - every advisor tested said it addressed their biggest workflow pain. The one thing that remained outside design's control was banker availability - a finding we returned to the bank as an explicit recommendation.
What I'd take into the next one
Design the boundary, not just the screen. Half the friction wasn't a UX problem - it was banker availability and firm structure. Naming what design can't fix, and handing it back as a recommendation, sharpened the parts we did own. The bank's commitment to moving banker communication into the platform came directly from what research surfaced.
Optimise for the second visit. The first login is rarely the problem. The question is whether someone opens the platform tomorrow instead of sending a WhatsApp. Every dashboard decision was measured against that test.
One persona is a trap. Solo advisors, firm owners, and junior advisors look identical on a spec sheet and behave nothing alike in practice. The layered view structure - including the adaptive home screen - came directly from refusing to flatten them into a single "power user."