Legacy Platform Renovation
Redesigning a legacy platform that outgrew its users’ needs
CLIENT:
FINRA
AREA:
FinTech | SaaS
YEAR:
2024-2025
ROLE:
Lead Product Designer
problem
FinPro (short for Financial Professional Gateway) is a centralized platform for registered financial representatives to manage their registration information, continuing education, and other financial information.
Originally designed as a single-purpose application, FinPro has evolved into a comprehensive platform that houses securities registration information for over 600,000 representatives. As the scope for FinPro’s capabilities expanded, the system has become increasingly complex and unwieldy, creating confusion for users.
my role
• Conduct comparative analysis of existing education task-based platforms (Workday, LinkedIn Learning, Degreed)
• Analyze and synthesize existing research at FINRA including survey data on educational requirements and call center agent feedback (with UX researcher)
• Create high-fidelity design for the new platform
• Conduct usability testing sessions with existing FinPro users
• Create a journey map of the average FinPro user’s experience to detect pain points, opportunities, and behaviors
• Incorporate usability testing feedback into high-fidelity design
• Share and iterate on high-fidelity design with stakeholders (including business team, engineers, and product managers)
• Document design specs for the final design
challenges
1. Redefining the User Experience. Initially, the product management team’s plan was to redesign only the branding (colors, typography, font, etc.) and none of the structural or foundational elements for FinPro’s redesign.
Upon assessing existing research, the design team (me and UX researcher) found a critical need for clear task prioritization and major structural changes to the new platform.
Unfortunately, the product management team pushed back because of the scope this would add. So, the design team conducted usability testing with low-fidelity prototypes to validate our assumption that this redesign needed a lot more work. After we synthesized our findings into a user journey map that highlighted major pain points, opportunities, and behaviors, we received buy in from our stakeholders in the product management, development, and business teams.
Had we not conducted this initial research, FinPro would not be the simple yet multi-functional platform that it is today.
2. Starting From Scratch. The original FinPro application was designed by an outside agency years before Sketch even introduced reusable components. So, I disregarded the style used in the original design (some of the colors did not pass accessibility standards for contrast checkers). And instead, I designed the application using the design system that the design team had recently finished building in Figma (we had just changed design software from Adobe XD to Figma). I took full advantage of Figma’s advanced auto-layout features to make designs and components responsive.
3. Designing a Responsive Application Desktop-First. Although mobile-first design is the standard, I adopted a desktop-first approach due to the initial availability of only desktop components in the evolving design system. Once mobile components became available midway through the project, I made sure to keep consistency between the mobile and desktop designs with adjustments for responsiveness.
solution
An entire redesign of a legacy platform to align with user needs, delivering a streamlined experience that effectively supports their goals.
Major features include:
• A dashboard that lists tasks that the user must complete to stay up to date with FINRA certifications and registrations
• A micro-app of Continuing Education data including statuses and current, past, and inactive history
• Fully responsive application between mobile and desktop screens
results
More users are completing their continuing education on time.
Users are enrolling in more continuing education programs.
Less calls to call center about Continuing Education and FinPro overall.
learnings
1. Embrace divergence in design solutions. As FinPro evolved over time to accommodate multiple functions, its original design became increasingly misaligned with user needs. As a result, the ideal solution required a complete departure from the initial design to better address the platform’s expanded functionality.
2. Leverage a design system to enhance efficiency and consistency. Utilizing an existing design system significantly streamlined implementation efforts while ensuring visual and functional consistency across FINRA applications, promoting a cohesive user experience.
