Deltatre (Massive Interactive) Consultancy

I worked at Deltatre (formerly Massive Interactive) for 2 years as a Associate UX/UI Designer. I spent a portion of that time in the consultancy side and over a year in the product side of the company.

Consultancy Work

In Consultancy I worked on a variety of projects including finessing UI kits, ideating for project pitches and primarily, redesigning a Superannuation Member Portal. The company wanted to find a way to increase member retention and, as they were primarily a retail superannuation fund, target younger demographics in order to get them to stay with the company. In this project my primary role was the UX Designer, however I also worked in a UI capacity where necessary. I worked with both the UX and UI Lead Designers.

Immersion and Planning

In the Immersion phase our team assessed how much information the superannuation fund currently had about their user base, and any metrics they were tracking that would benefit us in assessing where certain pain points lay. In this phase I investigated our clients current portal solution as well as those of other competitors and cross referenced this with the use cases and flows provided. From this I analysed each possible scenario and flow a user could encounter when using the site. We then derived a research plan and detailed timeline to move forward with.

Interesting Finding: As I had never really had much experience with superannuation it was a surprise to learn about the benefits involved in being proactive with it from a younger age as I’d always assumed superannuation was something to think about when I was older.

Kick-off

In the kickoff phase we introduced the client to our proposed timeline and used our knowledge from the immersion and planning phase to work with our client to create a prioritised list of use cases, tasks and scenarios that the portal would need to accommodate. We also wanted to work out what they wanted to get out of the project and create a list of agreed project objectives and problem statements. We did this primarily through a kickoff workshop and follow-up interviews with stakeholders through out the week. I participated in the workshop and interviews providing input as the UX/UI Designer and taking notes for use in the next phase.

Interesting Finding: I discovered that I fitted the prime persona being targeted by the superannuation fund, hopefully meaning I was able to provide a deeper level of empathy for our users.

We came up with a vision statement that was to drive our project moving forward:

Concept Development and User Testing

This phase was broken up into 3 week long mini sprints in which we ideated, conceptualised and tested designs with our prioritised use cases. We also followed up each session with a workshop to review each testing result.

Concept Development and User Testing Week 1:

Registration

Dashboard

We also began to ideate around the dashboard and what the landing page would look like and what information would be surfaced, as well as how to organise this information in a way that was easily accessible for users wanting to get in and out of the portal after finding what they are looking for.

After narrowing these down and presenting to clients we ended up with 2 concepts; the aptly named Dashboard Concept and a more out there concept, the Netflix Concept.

Testing

From our research we found that the superannuation fund had a 90% drop off rate for registrations and, with 70% of new joiners being under 25, we decided to target them primarily with our concepts for a registration flow. We also tested the 2 different concepts for the dashboard and explored the layout of the first page the user would see, analysing their initial impression of the information laid out before them. The first impression was especially important as under 25s are the demographic most associated with having little to no knowledge about super. These tests recorded the user’s face and the screen they were viewing and I created clips of the testing footage to provide to clients to explain our design decisions and particular pain points or successes achieved by the user.

Stage 1 Testing: 6 Participants:

• Age: 25 and under

• 1x good understanding about super

• 5x little to no understanding about super

• Focus on ‘first timers’ registration / login and first time dashboard experience

I created a user testing plan that laid out a series of questions to asses their current knowledge and experience with super and then lead users through the registration flow and assess their understanding and thoughts at each stage. We divided the users in half and presented each group with one of the different landing page concepts first and asked their opinion. We then presented them with the other landing page and asked their opinion comparatively. We also prepared a card sorting activity. Taking all links within the current navigation and printing them on cards, we asked each user to drop these cards based on what they thought would go together under each menu.

Findings

I grouped our findings into an affinity diagram to categorise and bring out the broader opinions of our solution and the problem area as a whole.

I discovered that most users found their personal portal difficult to use and didn’t get the hang of it, as they only logged on every once in a while to check how things were going and then leaving it. They found it difficult to get a real overview of their super and all the overwhelming information scared them rather than educated them on how important their super was, and what actions they could take to benefit themselves in the long run. Most users knew it was important but were not sure how to interact with their super.

The reaction to the new registration was overwhelmingly positive with feedback such as “So good! I would have expected to have to fill in more details”. Users didn’t realise they were registering for member access as it felt so seamless. Users also enjoyed little added patterns such as address auto complete features.

In terms of the dashboard, it was surprising to find that our users were more curious to interact with the Netflix style layout, but felt that the dashboard modules felt random and should be categorised.

With the card sorting users were confused by terms without context. For example, some were unsure what insurance was in the context of superannuation. Interestingly most separated personal information like name/ email from super information like balance.

I culminated these findings into a slide deck which was then used to present our results to our client.

Concept Development and User Testing Week 2:

Iterations

Based on the feedback we recieved, we reviewed the navigational heirachy based on the card sorting activities and prioritised and grouped the tiles, ensuring they all had titles and clear headings for easy scanability. We began to pack out the dashboard concepts and designed functionality into each section. By researching the information currently within the portal, we endeavoured to deliver the same functions but with more efficiency and education about its purpose. We particularly focused on the “My Super” category, building out the screens within which included: Transactions, My Contributions, Investments, Insurance, Beneficiaries, Find Lost Super, For your Employer and the Inbox. Within this we added full flows for Contributions, adding Beneficiaries and Finding Lost Super which we used for our testing plan. I developed a Contributions Calculator into the prototype that was interactive and, depending what the user typed into the contribution amount, could predict the average amount of benefit added to their super.

Testing

This time we focused on our middle demographic of users who were just starting to get involved with their super and needed education around what their super was about and what they needed to do to keep it in pristine condition. As a result, the testing was focused on making sure each page educated the user and gave them an understanding of what they were doing, and the purpose of each screen. Testing consisted of a number of introductory questions to assess their knowledge on super followed by a series of tasks we would ask them to complete (find lost super, add a beneficiary, use the calculator on contributions page). In this session, we wanted to see which of the 2 concepts the users preferred. Once again these tests recorded the user’s face and the screen they were viewing and I created clips of the testing footage to provide to clients to explain our design decisions and particular pain points or successes achieved by the user.

Stage 2 Testing: 5 Participants: 

• Age:

  • 2 x 35+

  • 3 x 25-35

• 5x Fair understanding of super.

• Becoming more involved / needing to know about their super

• Have logged in to their super account at least once

• Completed at least one task in their member portal (e.g. consolidated super)

Findings

We found that the Dashboard layout was very successful with users easily being able to complete the tasks provided and users saying things like “I want to use this super. It’s simple” The navigation module felt very natural with users easily navigating through without needing prompting.

What surprised us the most however was that when asked which they prefer, most users responded with the Netflix Layout, and despite it being harder to navigate this was the preferred layout. “It’s a cool dashboard”. They liked how the surfaced nature of the content allowed them to get an overview of their super without having to navigate anywhere. Users became stuck however, if a call to action didn’t match their expectation e.g if they wanted to view investments, “change investments” didn’t feel like the correct option.

The sentence form calculator in contributions was very well recieved and users loved to play around and were excited to see what numbers they could get by simply contributing $5 a month, and it is believed this would make users more likely to increase their contribution. Many users expressed a wish that they could start with a one off contribution and go from there rather than starting on a monthly plan right off the bat.

Adding a beneficiary was easy for all testers. Before starting the task, users thought that you could make a binding beneficiary online; some copy would help manage this assumption. The page did a good job educating users on what beneficiaries were and the difference between binding and non-binding.

Most users weren’t exactly sure what they needed to do to move their super to a new employer and, as a result, they often went with whatever their employer offered and just opened a new account. Users didn’t expect to have to download the form and then fill it out; they expected the company to refill the form with what data the user had already provided, so that they could send the form directly to their employer.

Find lost super also worked well but users wanted a follow-up confirmation to confirm the funds being merged and additional emails if more external funds were found.

Users also saw insurance as a separate entity and believed it deserved its own section under the navigation, not under the “My Super” header.

Based on this feedback we decided to move forward with the Netflix layout.

Concept Development and Testing Week 3:

In this session we went with an older demographic, this being the most knowledgable demographic for superannuation, as well as the demographic most in need of interaction with their super account. As we had decided to move forward with he dashboard layout, we began testing the more finite parts of the concept. In this session we wanted to test the effectiveness of the summary tiles at the beginning of each row, as well as having insurance as a top-level navigation item and testing on site calculators vs the links out calculators. We also wanted to test if adding key information to the “For your Employer” screen would make users more likely to take the super fund with them to a new job. These tests recorded the user’s face and the screen they were viewing and as with previous testing sessions I created clips of the testing footage to provide to clients to explain our design decisions and particular pain points or successes achieved by the user.

5 Participants:

• Age: 5 x 30+ (30-55yrs)

• 2x had a fair understanding of super

• 3x little understanding of super

• Becoming more involved / needing to know about their super

• Have logged into their super account at least once

• Completed at least one task in their member portal (e.g. consolidated super)

Findings

Users were still able to easily complete the tasks provided, however some struggled to notice the secondary navigation in each row as it was not on a card like the rest of the items in the row. Users thought this meant it was unrelated or felt it just blended into the background. Removing call to actions on the various modules also improved task completion, as users were no longer obstructed by a CTA that didn’t match their perception.

Users easily understood the “for your employer” section and the flexibility of the surfaced key information was greatly appreciated as users could download the paperwork and send it to an employer or simply use the page as a reference when filling out physical paperwork.

While users loved the interactive contributions calculator within the site, they felt very put off when being linked out to another screen for a calculator within their respective rows. To reduce confusion if the user is simply clicking through, we decided it would be better to have a row solely for these external calculators.

Executive Feedback:

We had a one week pause for the client to present an executive share back, and update all teams involved on our results and findings from testing. Once they had gathered the feedback from the respective sub-divisions, it was consolidated and passed back to us to review and implement into the designs going forward. There were no significant changes with the design, other than copy and a few functions that were deemed not possible from the clients side in the appropriate time frame. The latter were put in a later follow-up project e.g Insurance and investments to simply be a reskin to fit with the new design with no functional or structural changes.

Concept Refinement and User Testing

We began turning our wireframes into UI Elements and incorporating the new branding of the superannuation fund. I was tasked with conceptualising alternate ways we could present information on the Contributions, Insurance and Beneficiaries pages and then taking all the new interface and turning it into a high fidelity prototype in Azure, aiming for it to function close to exactly as it would when the website would be live (even down to hover states animations).

Final Round of Testing

I developed yet another testing plan involving a series of questions primarily assessing the users knowledge and experience of super. In this round we decided to use a range of demographics to test the solution as a whole, from the registration flow to navigation and task completion around the site. These testing sessions were open to our clients who were able to come into the next room and watch a live stream of the testing in process. I was in charge of running this next door session and involving the clients in a note taking session, so they could gain an insight and experience of how users were using their soon to be created project.

12 Participants: 

• 2 x 56-65

• 5 x 36-55

• 4x 25-35

• 6 x Rest Members

Knowledge of Super:

• 3x Little Knowledge about Super

• 5x Moderate Knowledge about Super

• 4x High Knowledge of Super

Findings

Our results were overwhelmingly positive, to the point that some users almost found the tasks to be too simple and efficient, and desired more reassurance and knowledge around how the client was dealing with their super. Users loved the “to-do” list element and the “for your employer” sections (allowing users to send off pre-filled forms to employers and remain with their current superfund). They found all the information very transparent and clear, and liked the ability to navigate from the header or scroll through their information. While there were some users who, at first, were confused with the innovative navigation style, they were quick to pick up on it and by the end of the session were using the website effortlessly “This is so easy, Its Like Super for Dummies, Its Great”.

Iterations

Registration:

• We removed the fake dashboard as it was causing confusion

• Added the option to email PDS and FSG agreements as some users wanted to finish registering and then read at their own pace.

• We also included a confirmation before proceeding to the homepage; this was also used as an opportunity to let the user know that they have default insurance and investments provided by law.

Portal:

• We increased the size of the tiles and simplified the summary tile at the beginning of the row.

• Added the ability to add multiple non-binding beneficiaries at once.

• Added more educational copy to each section explaining why the client required certain details and how the user could reap the full benefits of their super (e.g TFN, Contributions)

• We added an interstitial page for finding super to allow for loading times and also for the comfort of the user.

Development Assets

I was charged with creating the UX Specifications for this project, annotating various screens of the interface as well as providing reference animations and the prototype from testing. This would then be handed over to the client’s Development team to be implemented.

Final Concepts

Final concept imagery and prototypes are protected by NDA as this project is yet to launch.