IFS Design Sprint

Running a Design Sprint for a Complex Financial Product

Overview

In May 2019, Integrated Financial Settlements (IFS) brought me on in a contract role to revamp a piece of their legacy internal software. Their business is structured settlements: their agents use their software to experiment with different combinations of numbers and financial vehicles in order to find the best settlement structure for the claimant. Their legacy product was a piece of desktop Windows software that had been built in the 90s and was still in use. IFS wanted to take the opportunity to upgrade their product to a modern web experience, and while they were at it, re-think a lot of how the software operated. The overall goal was a usability upgrade, and to integrate new financial vehicles into the experience.

My Contributions

UX Design
Design Sprint Leader

The design sprint was 4 days long, and led by me and an in-house designer at IFS.

Day 1 was dedicated to understanding the problem. Group discussions with the many subject matter experts helped everyone to get on the same page.

Day 2 was for brainstorming and sketching as a group. The majority of participants were coming from a financial background. They were empowered to think like designers and even do their own UI sketches.

On day 3, the group decided on a direction, and the UX team got to prototyping.

On day 4, we got feedback from the group on our prototypes, and did remote usability testing sessions with actual users.
‍
After the sprint, I worked to flesh out the wireframes that we had generated. This was done in consultation with the subject matter experts in the company. With such a complex product in a highly regulated industry, it was important to get their input as I designed.

The design sprint was 4 days long, and led by me and an in-house designer at IFS. Day 1 was dedicated to understanding the problem. It was comprised of discussion and learning from the many subject matter experts in the room. Day 2 was for brainstorming and sketching as a group. On this day, a group of people who came from a financial field and had very little experience with design were empowered to think like designers and even do their own UI sketches. On day 3, the group decided on a direction, and the UX team got to prototyping. On day 4, we got feedback from the group on our prototypes, and did remote usability testing sessions with actual users.
‍
After the sprint, I worked to flesh out the wireframes that we had generated. This was done in consultation with the subject matter experts in the company. With such a complex product in a highly regulated industry, it was important to get their input as I designed.

The Design Sprint

June 2019

I created wireframes using insights from the subject matter experts who took part in the design sprint.

Participants from non-design backgrounds were empowered to create their own UI sketches and decide on the best ideas with a dot voting system.

During the discussions, everyone got involved by capturing ideas on post-it notes and then collaboratively sorting them into categories. Note the table of breakfast food – we nominated one of the participants to be in charge of all the food ordering. It was important to keep everyone's energy up during the four-day intensive sprint.

Next Project