Product designer
2021
Equity Release Supermarket was formed in 2008 by experienced, independent advisers. Equity Release Supermarket has a market-leading website, which helps those over 55 in their quest to find information on the best equity release rates & deals currently available.
Tools
Overview
During my time as a product designer at the design agency Opportunus, a key project I worked on was the fintech product ‘Equity Release Supermarket’. The main goal of the project was to redesign the customer-facing website and develop a new internal tool to help users with their workflow during the sales process of equity release for their clients. 
Tasks and responsibilities
Design system creation and management, Designing for IOS and Android and web, Client liaison, Qualitative and Quantitative user testing, User flows, Creating complex dashboards and data visualisations
Competitor tools
Client liaison and workshops 
Regular meetings with the client (ERS) were scheduled to update them on project progress and to allow both parties to express any queries or concerns. We also carried out remote workshops with both the client and advisers (users), consisting of whiteboarding sessions and user flow mapping. These workshops ensured that the product we were creating addressed the initial pain points of both parties.
Design for the product ecosystem   
ERS as a product integrated multiple tools built for different end-user groups. Not only was it imperative to have a solid understanding of these user personas but also strict documentation of these components was essential.- certain components were designed for specific tools but all were filed in 1 design system.
Consumer facing - B2C screen
Internal user CRM screen
Pain points/Challenges 
A key pain point that needed to be addressed involved the general user behaviour of advisers and how they processed key information in their daily workflow. Advisors were frequently off-site liaising with clients and were still using pen and paper to record the important information obtained whilst off-site. This led to valuable information being lost in transit and not being forwarded to the wider team of advisers for them to have access to this information.
From a user behavioural standpoint, the main issue was getting users to adjust their current ways of working to integrate the usage of the new platform to carry out tasks in the sales process.
Conflicting views with the client for project direction.
Working alongside an external design agency.
User behavioural adjustment to a new platform.
Research Findings 
Usability testing sessions
As the system had a variety of ways in which the user could perform a specific task, some users struggled when asked to Most participants described the general user experience as ‘user friendly’. However, some users still found completing certain tasks with the prototype more difficult than others such as finding a case. 
Surveys
Before large investment was made into creating a new experience for mobile users, user surveys were carried out to determine if there was a need to create a mobile experience that accommodated the device preferences of our off-site users.
Ideation  
Creating and managing design system   
Challenges designing for mobile   
As most screens in the product had large amounts of data, the challenge was reducing cluster and only displaying essential information/data visualisation for the user whilst navigating in the mobile experience.
Designing for IOS and Android