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Designing a financial planning experience to increase engagement and confidence, and action

Charles Schwab’s financial planning software for clients was outdated, cumbersome, and confusing. I led a 12-week incubator to reimagine and design an executive-ready product recommendation for a financial planning platform.

0 > 1 concept

UX strategy

UX research

Product design

B2C

Product strategy

Usability testing

Finance

Company

Year

Roles

Company

Charles Schwab

2021

Product design leadership
Product strategy
Research synthesis
Cross-functional facilitation

Charles Schwab

Year

2021

Role

Product design leadership
Product strategy
Research synthesis
Cross-functional facilitation

Clients who have a financial plan reported significantly higher confidence in their financial future. Clients didn't realize how important it was to set up financial plans in the first place.

Understanding the opportunity

At Charles Schwab, research shows that clients with a financial plan feel more confident in their financial future and are more likely to take actions that can drive Net New Assets (NNA). The existing planning experience, while effective in advisor-led contexts, lacked accessibility and engagement for self-directed digital investors.

Our team questioned

What free digital experience will meaningfully increase planning engagement and confidence for digital investors while generating measurable business value?

To answer this, we needed to

Diagnose the emotional and behavioral barriers to planning
Define the core jobs investors were trying to get done
Explore multiple concept directions
Validate client reaction and usability

Diagnose the emotional and behavioral barriers to planning
Define the core jobs investors were trying to get done
Explore multiple concept directions
Validate client reaction and usability

User interviews and research revealed that uncertainty and complexity are the primary sources of anxiety for clients who are new to planning for their future.

Discovery and research

We began by synthesizing internal planning research, competitive audits, and 14 hypotheses about why clients engage (or don’t engage) with planning tools. These hypotheses were evaluated against client interviews, market trends, and previous Schwab research.

Key insights included

Clients often don’t know what to do next after receiving a plan
A holistic, dynamic view of finances increases confidence
Clients drop off early due to cognitive overload and unclear rewards

Clients often don’t know what to do next after receiving a plan
A holistic, dynamic view of finances increases confidence
Clients drop off early due to cognitive overload and unclear rewards

We surfaced a core emotional theme from interviews

Clients feel anxious about planning, not because they don’t care, but because the process feels uncertain and complex.

Our habit formation workshop and journey map led to how we structured client onboarding, education, and progression.

Behavioral lens: learning from habit formation

To deepen this insight, we explored habit formation outside of finance, mapping emotional highs and lows across change journeys.

We surveyed 50 participants

What habit did you recently start?
How did you research it?
Did you reach your goal?

Key insights included

Most anxiety occurs before and immediately after starting a habit
Early friction leads to a drop-off
Confidence increases once a plan exists, even before outcomes are achieved
Motivation improves after small wins, not expert mastery

“When I think about my financial future, I want clear answers and simple steps that help me make progress with confidence, even as my goals evolve.”

Defining our persona

From interviews and workshops, I created a persona emphasizing:

Desire for simplicity and visibility
Preference for bite-sized education
Aversion to over-gamification or “expert-mode” financial tools

From interviews and workshops, I created a persona emphasizing:

Desire for simplicity and visibility
Preference for bite-sized education
Aversion to over-gamification or “expert-mode” financial tools

Representative client quotes

“Show me everything in one place.”
“Don’t make it complicated.”
“Help me understand without making me an expert.”

Testing different solutions revealed that providing adequate guidance and clarity around saving for retirement significantly enhanced the financial planning experiences.

Ideation and concept exploration

I led and facilitated ideation sessions that generated divergent concepts aimed at increasing planning engagement through different metaphors and mechanisms.

These included

DigiPet: A life-metaphor visualization for finances
Concierge: A digital guide offering contextual advice
Finance with Friends: Social accountability tool
Financial Challenge: A gamified habit journey
My Roadmap: A visual landscape of financial goals
Benchmark MoneyGuidePro: Legacy planning experience

These concepts were translated into lightweight prototypes and evaluated through targeted client surveys.

Concept validation and iteration

No single concept dominated across audiences, but My Roadmap and MoneyGuidePro consistently scored highest in usability and emotional resonance. Rather than choosing based on scores alone, I facilitated a synthesis process where design insights from each concept were combined into a unified, simplified planning experience that emphasized:

Clarity over complexity
Personalization over gamification
Early wins over full mastery

I built responsive prototypes for both desktop and mobile experiences and conducted 4 rounds of rapid usability testing, iterating navigational flows, content, and interaction patterns based on client feedback.

It was also important to provide a holistic overview of their finances.

A detailed view of their finances created more curiosity and engagement

I designed the dashboard experience to help a client understand where they are on their financial planning journey. Clients were able to link accounts, create financial goals and learn how to optimize their finances in order to reach their goals on time.

Driving Net New Assets through enabling clients to open new accounts across the Schwab ecosystem.

Provide ways to optimize goals

My goal was to build an experience that will drive Net New Assets. One way to do this was to provide visibility into different accounts and products that will drive incremental wealth.

A sandbox environment will encourage engagement and allow clients to own their financial journey.

Encourage exploration through “what if” simulations

I designed a sandboxed planning experience that enabled clients to test goals, reallocate contributions, and adjust retirement timelines, reducing decision anxiety and accelerating commitment to decision making.

Solution and recommendation

The Digital Goal Experience was a free digital financial planning product concept designed to maximize planning engagement for Schwab investors by reducing anxiety, creating clarity, and driving actionable outcomes.

Through hypothesis-driven research, rapid prototyping, and iterative usability testing, we evaluated and stress-tested multiple concepts, delivering a validated product recommendation to executive leadership with strong client resonance.

Wins and outcomes

The idea was pitched to the executive team and was approved for development. This project was handed over Schwab’s Financial Planning team to build in 2022.

While testing the final concept, clients consistently reported that the experience helped them:

“Feel more confident planning their financial goals”
“Engage with planning in a way that felt achievable”
“See value after completing even one goal”

My learnings

Early clarity and simple next steps build trust within complex processes.
Reduced friction increases sustained engagement
Tools that help clients play with possibilities drive deeper exploration and potential NNA.
A lighter planning experience can lead to measurable engagement outcomes, especially among beginners.

Made with care, AI and plenty of homemade lattes