HelloWallet Overview
Company: HelloWallet (2010-2015)
Role: Director of UX, Lead Product Designer, Lead UI Engineer, Data Visualization Design
Introduction
I spent over 5+ years building and designing HelloWallet’s products from scratch. This included the main HelloWallet product, a mobile app (iOS & Android), an iPad app, a Google Glass app, and finally a retirement investment product. I grew the UX organization to 4 UX Designers, including mentoring some Graphic Designers that wanted to transition into the UX field. Some of the work shown below is my own, and some of it is the result of leading the UX team as well as the broader product development teams (Product, Engineering).
The goals of all these apps were the same – give users guidance to become financially independent, and literate. Below are a few case studies on these projects, followed by a selection of that work. If you’d like to learn more, please reach out for more information on the multiple challenges we were solving.
All this lead to HelloWallet winning a Webby Award in 2013, and nominated again in 2015
Specific Product Stories
Leadership @ HelloWallet
I love leading teams of talented, curious people. It’s my passion now. Whether its managing my colleagues that work for me or managing upward to leadership – I strive to create an environment where transparency, trust, progress over perfection, and efficiency allows us all to achieve impactful product experiences…and feel that better-together story while doing it.
Here are a few presentation samples that I gave to leadership on various efforts I was leading between 2010-2015.
Design Sprint & Design Principles
I was put in charge when HelloWallet leadership needed to redefine our product offering as several smaller packages. I proposed leading a week long "Design Sprint" that involved each team at HelloWallet. The goal was to quickly come up with a solution that leveraged each team's perspectives.
Here was the resulting deck that was presented to our stakeholders. It was met with open arms and considered extremely successful, this work directly lead to the creation of teams around the new products proposed here.
UX Team Rulebook & UX Framework
After growing the UX Team to include junior designers, I wanted to create a rulebook that could be used to explain to new UX Designers how to exceed at HelloWallet. It contains lessons learned, best practices, atomic design basics, and our general process at the time which would lead into a more focused discussion.
I collaborated with the more senior designers in creating this deck.
Main HelloWallet Product
HelloWallet was a financial app and website that gives you a full picture of your financial world. You can link the app to your bank accounts, investments, and credit cards, and it would give you a customized guidance path to help you achieve financial goals.
Below is a screenshot of the kind of look and feel that we evolved to around 2013, and the original design I helped design from 2010. I led the efforts to bring more photography and data visualizations into the main product’s landing page.
Before
Mockup of HelloWallet’s Dashboard circa 2010
After
Mockup of HelloWallet’s Dashboard circa 2013
Feature Focus: Budgeting
An all-in-one view of planning exactly how your going to spend your income.
Clear tracking view to see how your doing with intuitive controls right where you need them.
HelloWallet Mobile App (iOS)
We designed the original GTM mobile application back in 2011 – 4 years after the launch of the iPhone. This application was designed using the latest web trends at the time (as you can see 😉). By the time 2013 came around, Apple drastically changed their design system and UI language. We followed those guidelines to update the mobile application to a more modern design.
Early Wireframes of Retirement Guidance
These wireframes represent Retirement Guidance within HelloWallet’s main consumer web-app.
Miscellaneous Design Work from my time at HelloWallet
Personas for HelloWallet
A snapshot of the personas the UX Team developed during my time leading the UX Team.
