Kin + Carta
The AI Experience Enabler
In the summer of 2024, Kin + Carta hosted its annual FWD conference in New York City and London, where it displayed new technologies, ideas, and collaborated with clients. The conference focused on building next-gen financial services.
CLIENT
Kin + Carta
ROLE
UX/UI Designer
AREA OF FOCUS
Financial Services • Web
TIMELINE
April 2024
3 weeks engagement
OVERVIEW
The FWD24 Labs project showcased the power of Generative AI and personalization at scale within financial services. Leveraging Optimizely, Microsoft, and Kin + Carta technologies, we demonstrated how connected AI-driven experiences can deliver more relevant customer interactions and drive meaningful business outcomes.
THE CHALLENGE
Our team was tasked with creating an experience for FWD to showcase a financial advisory proposal copilot, highlighting the journey of both the investor and the advisor. With a tight timeline of just three weeks, we had to deliver everything in high-fidelity designs.
MY ROLE
The project team consisted of two designers, and we divided responsibilities to maximize efficiency and meet an accelerated timeline. I led the overall visual direction and created the high-fidelity designs for the investor, advisor, and proposal creation experiences. My responsibilities included developing the information architecture, organizing content and user flows to ensure intuitive navigation, establishing a cohesive visual design system across all experiences, and creating interactive prototypes to communicate and validate concepts. Given the tight timeline, close collaboration with my design partner and cross-functional stakeholders was essential, enabling us to work quickly, iterate effectively, and successfully deliver the project.
GOALS & OBJECTIVES
The demo focused on the mass market retail advisory space, with the goal of empowering financial advisors to work more efficiently by delivering a higher volume of proposals in the same timeframe, improve the quality of those proposals by showcasing the most relevant and compelling recommendations, and create highly personalized experiences that align client needs with tailored offerings to drive stronger conversion and more meaningful engagement.
PROCESS
01 Discovery
Conducted desk research across several industries to analyze design aesthetics and identify emerging website design trends. I then created multiple style tiles to communicate the overall look and feel of the product without building full-page mockups, allowing the team to review and align on a final design direction.
02 Define
In parallel, we mapped out user flows for the investor, advisor, and proposal creation experiences and developed a prioritized requirements list using a “must-have, should-have, could-have, won’t-have” framework to guide and focus the design process.
03 Design
Created all high-fidelity wireframes across all three experiences—investor, advisor, and proposal creation—ensuring visual harmony.
04 Deliver
Delivered a high-fidelity prototype showcasing how innovation in financial services can empower advisors to work more efficiently and create higher-quality, personalized proposals that drive customer conversion.
SKETCHES & IDEATION
Below are examples of the desk research conducted across multiple industries, along with user flows based on project requirements, low-fidelity wireframes, and style tile explorations that informed the site's visual direction.
FINAL DEMO DESIGNS
Despite a tight three-week timeline, the team successfully demonstrated how Gen AI could be applied to financial services, showcasing its potential to drive impactful change and deliver measurable, meaningful outcomes for organizations. Below showcases some of the final designs for all experiences—financial advisor matching, appointment management, tracking dashboards, and proposal generation. All of these experiences will be augmented and facilitated by Optimizely One and Microsoft Azure AI technologies.
FINAL DEMO DESIGNS
Investor Portal
The storyline begins with the investor logging into the portal and browsing insight articles. They come across one that captures their interest. After reading the article, a call-to-action invites the investor to connect with a financial advisor on the topic. They can immediately schedule an appointment directly from the article. During the appointment process, at the step where documents can be uploaded, there's an optional disclaimer notifying the investor that generative AI will be used in the initial review and processing of the documents. Once the appointment is confirmed, the investor receives article recommendations to help them prepare.
Before Meeting [Advisor Portal]
Before the meeting, the advisor logs into their portal and sees a newly confirmed lead. They review the client's (investor's) profile, which includes the information provided during the appointment scheduling process. In the documents section, each uploaded file is accompanied by an AI-generated summary highlighting the key takeaways. On the right side of the screen, the advisor has access to a Copilot chat, allowing them to ask any questions related to the investor and the details they've provided.
Meeting [Investor & Advisor]
During the meeting between the investor and the advisor, the Copilot chat listens and transcribes the conversation for the advisor. The advisor can mark any of the investor's responses as important for further review after the meeting. Additionally, a GenAI summary provides a real-time overview of the discussion, offering helpful insights and recommendations to the advisor throughout the meeting.
Meeting [Investor & Advisor]
During the meeting between the investor and the advisor, the Copilot chat listens and transcribes the conversation for the advisor. The advisor can mark any of the investor's responses as important for further review after the meeting. Additionally, a GenAI summary provides a real-time overview of the discussion, offering helpful insights and recommendations to the advisor throughout the meeting.
