The future of investment experiences
Shaping the vision for pension management
Client
Large UK pension-provider
Role
Design Researcher
Design Teams
1 UX Designer
1 Service Designer
1 Content Designer
Where
Glasgow, Scotland
Duration
3 months
This project is subject to a NDA.
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What?
Strategy
Investments
Pension
Finance
Research
Design sprint
Desk research
Personas
North Star
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.
Untapped markets and experiences
Money myths and fear hold back UK citizens from handling their pension investments
A clear confidence gap exists between the two cohorts aged 35 to 55. One group is relatively confident, with 70–80% comfortable managing investments, though 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 financial concepts.
Meeting both cohort's wealth's expectations
This gap highlights a critical opportunity: 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
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 mid-life renters as passive customers with some willingness to engage, and high-income professionals as more financially savvy and actively involved in managing their finances.
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.
3. Design sprint
Defining early design opportunities
We conducted a two-day foundation sprint workshop to identify early design opportunities.
Throughout the sprint, we combined:
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Individual and collaborative working
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Dot voting
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2x2 charts
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Blue sky thinking
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Defining the basics
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Evaluating options
... all the while working at pace, focusing on progress over perfection and much more!
4. Outcomes
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.
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.