The future of pension experiences
Shaping the vision for invtesment management
This initiative focused on defining a clear long-term vision for how customers could view, adjust, and manage their investments within their pension provider ecosystem. The goal was to establish a “North Star” experience to guide future design and delivery decisions.
Strategy
Investments
Finance
Research
Desk research
Personas
Pension
Design sprint
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Client
Large UK pension-provider
Role
Design researcher
Design Team
1 UX Designer
1 Service Designer
1 Content Designer
Where
Edinburgh, Scotland
Duration
3 months
Transforming workplace pensions from passive plans to active experiences
Current state: A split in confidence around pension decisions
Among UK adults aged 35–55, there is a clear confidence gap. One group feels relatively comfortable managing investments (70–80%), yet nearly 40% still lack clarity on key decisions like pension drawdown. In contrast, the other group shows much lower confidence, with 60–70% feeling unsure about investment decisions and around 40% struggling to understand core financial concepts.
An opportunity for pension providers: Meeting both cohort's wealth's expectations
This gap highlights a critical chance: while one group seeks clarity and optimisation, the other needs guidance and confidence-building from the ground up. For a pension provider, catering to both is essential; not only to support better financial outcomes, but to build trust, drive engagement, and ensure long-term customer retention across very different levels of financial capability.
A holistic vision piece
1. Research
A mixed-method approach
In order to come into our design sprint well-informed, my team and I carried out several rounds of research. Here is how we laid the groundwork...
7 research projects
& reports analyzed
9 competitor experiences
reviewed
5 investment SMEs interviewed
Key insights:
The case for smarter, more tailored financial guidance
Divergent learning needs
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Beginners need clear, bite-sized education to move from basic concepts (budgeting) to advanced pension and investment products.
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Experienced investors find introductory content patronising and want faster access to sophisticated options.
Personalisation is needed
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Both new and experienced cohorts expect content and recommendations tailored to their financial savviness, interests, and product usage.
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Lack of personalised support risks inaction or switching to competitors.
Social influence and misconceptions
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Family and friends are the most trusted source of advice, but recommendations often carry biases and misinformation.
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Even high-asset customers can lack financial literacy, reinforcing the need for education across all segments.
2. Customer segmentation
FRESCO personas
Alongside our research, we identified two key customer groups that represent the segments aligned with our North Star vision.
We defined midlife renters as passive customers who are somewhat willing to engage but held back by limited financial knowledge, while asset-rich greys are more financially savvy, actively manage their finances, and want greater control over the products we offer.
These two personas proved especially useful during the Design Sprint sessions.
These segments are based on the FRESCO model, a financial services segmentation tool that divides the UK population into segments based on individuals’ financial behaviours.
Mid-life renters
Asset-rich greys
3. Design sprint
Defining early design opportunities
Using the Foundation Sprint method by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, we ran a two-day design sprint to identify early design opportunities.
During the sprint, we went through the following steps:
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Defining the basics of the project
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Map the customers and problems clearly
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Identify differentiation opportunities
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Generate and evaluate strategic directions
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Formulate a clear founding hypothesis
... all the while working at pace, focusing on progress over perfection and much more!
Lenses: used to explore and test an idea from multiple angles, helping reduce bias and ensure a well-rounded opportunity before committing to a direction.
A lot of early stage ideas!
Structured solution cards: used to explore, compare, and evaluate potential solutions during the sprint.
4. Outcomes
Founding hypothesis: opportunities to pursue
The research and sprint identified key opportunities, helping us define next steps for modernising the digital pension experience.
We then presented these to stakeholders and ran a prioritisation exercise to determine which features to take forward.
The founding hypothesis is the sprint’s outcome.
It is an early solution which we can shape into a prototype, and rapidly test and iterate on.
Key learnings
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This was one of the few design sprints conducted in our lab. Presenting the process at a high level and clearly demonstrating its impact helped build strong buy in for our approach.
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Storytelling was especially important, as most stakeholders were not familiar with design practices. Communicating the work effectively opened the door for more projects like this in the future.
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By laying out potential solutions clearly, stakeholders were able to prioritize initiatives and add them to a structured backlog. Since the design team helped shape these hypotheses, it will be easier to revisit and advance this work when it becomes a priority.
Next steps
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We will create low-fidelity prototypes for the top four opportunities and validate them through user testing with both customer groups.
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Based on the results, we will decide which concepts to take forward and continue iterating and refining them.
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We will then translate the strongest concepts into higher-fidelity prototypes and align with technical teams to assess feasibility and plan implementation.