Transforming a fragmented advisor experience into a scalable platform

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The redesigned platform shifted the advisor experience from a collection of disconnected tools into a unified, intuitive system that supports independent insurance advisors in managing their daily workflows, client relationships, and business performance.

 

Key Outcomes

• Simplified complex workflows

  • Consolidated multiple advisor tasks into a more cohesive experience, reducing the need to navigate across disconnected tools.

• Improved data visibility for decision-making

  • Prioritized key client and performance information, enabling advisors to quickly assess their business and take action.

• Created a scalable foundation

  • Established consistent design patterns and structures that support future growth and additional features.

• Enhanced usability across key touchpoints

  • Streamlined navigation and content hierarchy to reduce cognitive load in data-heavy environments.

 

Design Impact

This work goes beyond interface improvements,it redefines how advisors interact with their tools:

• Supports faster, more confident decision-making

• Reduces friction in daily, high-frequency tasks

• Aligns the product with real advisor workflows, not internal system structures

 

Learnings & Reflection

Designing for independent insurance advisors required balancing complex business needs with clarity and usability.

Key takeaways:

• Simplifying does not mean removing complexity, it means structuring it intentionally

• Data-heavy interfaces require strong prioritization and hierarchy

• Designing for scalability early prevents future fragmentation

I focused on understanding advisor workflows end-to-end, aligning stakeholders across products, and prioritizing solutions that could scale across a unified experience.

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Discovery & alignment

Aligned with product, business, and engineering stakeholders to understand constraints, priorities, and assumptions.

Conducted an internal audit of existing tools to identify inconsistencies, gaps, and duplication across the current experience.

Reviewed existing research and product documentation to build a shared understanding of the ecosystem.

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Research

Used a mix of moderated and unmoderated methods, along with competitive analysis, to balance depth, scale, and market context.

• Conducted moderated sessions to understand advisor workflows, behaviors, and pain points

• Designed and deployed unmoderated user tests via an advisor forum to gather broader input

• Performed a competitive analysis to benchmark patterns and identify opportunities across similar products

Focused on how tasks were completed across tools rather than individual features, revealing key friction points and redundancies.

Insights from this phase informed which workflows to prioritize.

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Synthesis & problem framing

Synthesized findings into key themes and mapped end-to-end journeys to identify where users switched tools, repeated actions, or relied on workarounds.

Reframed the problem from feature gaps to overall experience fragmentation and defined core principles to guide the design.

 

Defining the experience

Mapped the future-state experience with a focus on simplifying navigation, reducing duplication, and improving cohesion.

Explored multiple approaches and made trade-offs based on user needs, technical constraints, and scalability.

Key decisions focused on what to unify, simplify, and defer.

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Design & iteration

Developed wireframes and flows, iterating quickly to validate structure and usability.

Designed with a system-level approach to ensure consistency and scalability, while collaborating closely with cross-functional teams.

 

Validation

Tested concepts with users to validate workflows and identify friction points.

Used feedback to refine interactions and ensure alignment with user needs.

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Collaboration & iteration

Worked closely with product, engineering, and stakeholders throughout the process.

Maintained continuous feedback loops to iterate quickly and adapt to new insights.