INVESTMENT ADVISOR MOBILE APPLICATION

INVESTMENT ADVISOR MOBILE APPLICATION

Designing to boost sales productivity and flexibility

Designing to boost sales productivity and flexibility

Designing to boost sales productivity and flexibility

MY ROLE

As senior user experience designer was to drive the investment advisor app from concept to launch, translating the core business need for increased sales productivity into an intuitive, user-centered mobile experience.

THE TEAM

Senior UX designer (me)

Product manager

1 Front-end developer

1 Back-end developer

SKILLS

Product design

Heuristic UX audit

Interactive prototype

Product development

TIMELINE

Apr 2021 - Oct 2021

MY ROLE

As senior user experience designer was to drive the investment advisor app from concept to launch, translating the core business need for increased sales productivity into an intuitive, user-centered mobile experience.

THE TEAM

Senior UX designer (me)

Product manager

1 Front-end developer

1 Back-end developer

SKILLS

Product design

Heuristic UX audit

Interactive prototype

Product development

TIMELINE

Apr 2021 - Oct 2021

Overview

PropertyShare's elite sales team was tethered to a legacy, web-based platform, creating a significant bottleneck in their high-touch client engagement model. I was tasked with leading the end-to-end design of a native mobile application to decouple sales operations from the desktop, streamline core workflows, and empower the team to connect with clients more effectively.

The resulting iOS and Android application, Sales Velocity, became the primary tool for the entire sales division.

40%

increase in weekly calls logged per agent

60%

reduction in post-call administrative time

95%

adoption and positive sentiment score from the team

My Role: End-to-End Product Design Leadership

As the sole Product Designer on this project, I owned the entire design lifecycle, from initial discovery and problem definition through to high-fidelity prototyping, developer collaboration, and post-launch iteration. I functioned as a strategic partner to Product and Engineering, ensuring that our design solutions were not only user-centric but also technically feasible and aligned with core business objectives.

User & Stakeholder Research

Conducting contextual inquiries with Investment Advisors and interviews with Sales Managers and the Head of Sales to deeply understand user behaviors, pain points, and hierarchical needs.

Sitemap Creation

We sketched out the IA on a high level to understand how it will integrate with the current backend structure seamlessly.

We sketched out the IA at a high level to understand how it will integrate seamlessly with the current backend structure.


Prototyping & UI Design:

Building a library of reusable components and delivering high-fidelity, interactive prototypes in Figma for stakeholder reviews, developer handoff, and usability testing.

Agile Collaboration

Writing and prioritizing user stories, managing design tasks in Jira, and co-leading sprint planning and backlog grooming sessions with the Product Manager.

Cross-Functional Leadership

Leading design reviews and handoffs, and embedding with the engineering team to ensure pixel-perfect implementation and effective problem-solving during development.

Quality Assurance

Performing rigorous design QA and coordinating usability testing sessions to validate design decisions and identify areas for refinement.

Our approach was grounded in a rigorous, user-centered design thinking framework, focused on de-risking assumptions early and building stakeholder buy-in through data-driven advocacy.

Research &

Discovery

Research &

Discovery

Analysis

and Synthesis

Analysis

& Synthesis

Ideation and

Strategy

Ideation &

Strategy

Execution &

Handovers

Execution &

Handovers

Discovery

The project kicked off with a request to make the existing dashboard "work on mobile." I knew a literal translation would fail. To build my case, I initiated a discovery phase focused on the Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) of our sales agents.

Through a series of on-site observations and remote interviews, I mapped the end-to-end sales call workflow. This research generated a critical insight: over 80% of an agent's tasks could be distilled into three core loops:

Pre-Call Prep


Quickly reviewing a client's history and last interaction.

Pre-Call Prep


Quickly reviewing a client's history and last interaction.

In-Call Reference


Accessing key data points without disrupting the conversation.

In-Call Reference


Accessing key data points without disrupting the conversation.

Post-Call Logging


Rapidly capturing notes and scheduling the next action.

Post-Call Logging


Rapidly capturing notes and scheduling the next action.

This data-backed JTBD framework was instrumental in convincing stakeholders to pivot from a feature-parity model to a task-oriented mobile-first strategy.

The Challenge: The Desktop Bottleneck

PropertyShare’s sales division thrives on speed and personal connection. However, their primary tool—a complex, data-heavy desktop CRM—was fundamentally misaligned with the dynamic nature of their work. This misalignment created several critical business challenges:

Limited Flexibility & Productivity

Agents were desk-bound, unable to efficiently manage client interactions, log notes, or schedule follow-ups while in transit or between meetings. This directly capped their potential daily call volume and follow-up velocity.

Limited Flexibility & Productivity

Agents were desk-bound, unable to efficiently manage client interactions, log notes, or schedule follow-ups while in transit or between meetings. This directly capped their potential daily call volume and follow-up velocity.

Limited Flexibility & Productivity

Agents were desk-bound, unable to efficiently manage client interactions, log notes, or schedule follow-ups while in transit or between meetings. This directly capped their potential daily call volume and follow-up velocity.

High-Friction Data Entry

The desktop interface required navigating multiple screens and fields to log a single call. This cumbersome process led to inconsistent data capture, incomplete client histories, and valuable time spent on admin tasks instead of selling.

High-Friction Data Entry

The desktop interface required navigating multiple screens and fields to log a single call. This cumbersome process led to inconsistent data capture, incomplete client histories, and valuable time spent on admin tasks instead of selling.

High-Friction Data Entry

The desktop interface required navigating multiple screens and fields to log a single call. This cumbersome process led to inconsistent data capture, incomplete client histories, and valuable time spent on admin tasks instead of selling.

Loss of Context

Management had extremely limited real-time visibility into the team's remote activities and the overall health of the sales pipeline without manually pulling reports from a separate, cumbersome portal.

Loss of Context

Management had extremely limited real-time visibility into the team's remote activities and the overall health of the sales pipeline without manually pulling reports from a separate, cumbersome portal.

Loss of Context

Management had extremely limited real-time visibility into the team's remote activities and the overall health of the sales pipeline without manually pulling reports from a separate, cumbersome portal.

The initial stakeholder vision was a direct port of the web dashboard to a mobile responsive view. My primary strategic challenge was to shift this perspective from a "shrink-and-squish" approach to a truly mobile-first, task-oriented paradigm optimized for the sales agent's real-world context.

Design Strategy

The central design problem was extreme information density. How could we present years of client history, complex deal structures, and extensive notes on a device that was also being used to make the call?

Glance and Dive model

Glance

The UI would present critical, high-level information in easily scannable "cards" on a central dashboard. An agent could glance at their screen and immediately know the client's status, deal size, and last contact date.

Dive

With a single tap, the agent could dive deeper into any section (e.g., call notes, documents) presented in a focused, modal view that was easy to dismiss, allowing them to return to the main call screen without losing context.

This architecture was validated through rapid paper prototyping and low-fidelity wireframes tested with sales agents, confirming that it met their need for quick, non-intrusive information retrieval.

Execution

Working within an agile framework, I moved from wireframes to high-fidelity, interactive prototypes in Figma. A key challenge emerged during this phase: the application was being built on a new internal framework that lacked mature security protocols.


I collaborated directly with the lead engineer and security architect to co-design solutions. We integrated biometric authentication (Face ID/Touch ID) as the primary entry point and designed UI patterns for data masking on sensitive client information. This proactive collaboration ensured that security was a foundational element of the user experience, not an afterthought.


Throughout development, I conducted weekly design QA sessions and ran usability tests with a pilot group of users. This iterative feedback loop allowed us to refine micro-interactions, such as optimizing the tap targets for one-handed use and fine-tuning the voice-to-text transcription for note-taking.

THE SOLUTION

The final product is a native iOS and Android application engineered for speed, context, and clarity. It empowers the sales team by focusing on their most critical tasks.

The final product is a native iOS and Android application engineered for speed, context, and clarity. It empowers the sales team by focusing on their most critical tasks.

Key Design Decisions & Features

The "Glance and Dive" Dashboard


The home screen provides a prioritized list of daily calls. Each client is represented by a summary card showing vital information. Tapping a card expands it to reveal detailed notes and history via collapsible accordion menus, allowing agents to access deep context without ever leaving the primary screen.

Role-Based Views


Recognizing that different roles have different needs, we designed three distinct interfaces.


Investment Advisor: A task-focused view centered on their assigned clients and daily call list.


Sales Manager: A dashboard view with team performance metrics and the ability to drill down into individual agent activity.


Sales Head: An executive-level aggregate view of the entire division's performance pipeline and forecasting. This tailored approach dramatically reduces cognitive load and ensures all information presented is immediately relevant and actionable.

Streamlined Call Logging


The home screen provides a prioritized list of daily calls. Each client is represented by a summary card showing vital information. Tapping a card expands it to reveal detailed notes and history via collapsible accordion menus, allowing agents to access deep context without ever leaving the primary screen.

The Impact

The Sales app was launched to overwhelming positive reception and quickly became an indispensable tool. We tracked its performance against our initial business goals and observed a significant, measurable impact within three months.

40% Increase in Sales Calls

Agents logged an average of 40% more client calls per week, directly attributed to the flexibility of the mobile platform.

40% Increase in Sales Calls

Agents logged an average of 40% more client calls per week, directly attributed to the flexibility of the mobile platform.

40% Increase in Sales Calls

An average of 40% more client calls per week, directly attributed to the flexibility of the mobile platform.

60% Reduction in Admin Time

The average time taken to log call details and schedule follow-ups decreased by 60%, freeing up hundreds of hours across the team to focus on revenue-generating activities.

60% Reduction in Admin Time

The average time taken to log call details and schedule follow-ups decreased by 60%, freeing up hundreds of hours across the team to focus on revenue-generating activities.

Actual Knowledge Transfer

International clients’ varied schedules caused delays and misalignment in call availability, hence delayed responses.

95% Positive Adoption

Within 90 days, 95% of the sales team reported using the app as their primary daily tool. Qualitative feedback praised its intuitive design and positive impact on their work-life flexibility.

95% Positive Adoption

Within 90 days, 95% of the sales team reported using the app as their primary daily tool. Qualitative feedback praised its intuitive design and positive impact on their work-life flexibility.

95% Positive Adoption

International clients’ varied schedules caused delays and misalignment in call availability, hence delayed responses.

Voices from the project

This project reinforced my belief that successful product design is not just about creating elegant interfaces, but about fundamentally re-imagining workflows to solve core business problems. My biggest learning was the power of data-driven advocacy in stakeholder management. By grounding my design rationale in user research (the JTBD framework), I was able to successfully pivot the project's direction and deliver a solution that far exceeded the impact of the original request. The close collaboration with engineering, particularly around technical constraints like security, was also critical to creating a product that was not only usable but also robust and trustworthy.

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Drop me a line

Let's talk

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