Fidelity Investments

My role at Fidelity

Principal UX Designer

As a Principal UX Designer, my primary focus is to create innovative solutions that improve user adoption and ease of use, while meeting both internal and business needs. I use storytelling to clearly communicate the value and impact of design decisions, ensuring alignment and engagement from stakeholders. With over eight years of UX/UI design experience at Fidelity Investments, I have worked closely with multiple business units to deliver impactful, user-centric solutions.

Team

The teams I typically collaborate with include myself as the UX Designer, multiple developers, QAs, a squad lead, a scrum master, and, when possible, UX researchers. The composition of these teams varies depending on the specific project requirements during my time at Fidelity.

Strategy

I begin by gathering requirements from stakeholders and business units to understand their needs. Then, I analyze these requirements to pinpoint what’s truly essential and streamline processes for the user. I often challenge stakeholders with questions like, “How much time do you want to spend explaining this platform or product to a newly onboarded associate?” or “Wouldn’t it be great to have a product so intuitive that it requires no instructions or follow-up emails for help?” My goal is to create solutions that are intuitive, easy to use, and embody what I call Invisible Design.

Planning

Start with initial meetings to align with stakeholders, followed by brainstorming sessions using whiteboards to generate ideas and create low-fidelity wireframes that help visualize concepts and foster a shared understanding. Collect feedback and suggestions to refine the concepts through further whiteboard sessions, developing solutions iteratively.

At this stage, integrate the company’s design system into a prototype with interactive elements, allowing for testing with both stakeholders and users. Observe their interactions with the prototype, gather insights, and continue to refine the design based on feedback and findings.

Design Develop Test Launch

Once the research is complete, designs have been handed over for development, production has begun, and QA testing is finished, it's time for stakeholders to give their approval. The next step is to launch the project and make it public within the company. Over time, the process will restart, with user feedback driving future updates and improvements.

HR | Early Career Portal

This project was a game-changer for HR, transforming their workflow from cumbersome Excel sheets to an intuitive, transparent, and feature-rich app that made their lives significantly easier each quarter. It involved thorough research to uncover both the known requirements and the hidden needs we hadn’t anticipated, but the end result was embraced wholeheartedly, with a 100% positive reception. The app streamlined processes like onboarding, delegation, hiring, and more, saving immense amounts of time. Plus, everything was moved to the cloud—no more circulating Excel sheets, ease of use and security.

Legal Team | ACTIVITY MANAGER

One of my initial projects at Fidelity was with the legal team, where we built a new product from the ground up. Our small team spent days brainstorming a solution to track the time and effort attorneys dedicated to legal matters across the company. Capturing this data was straightforward—we allowed attorneys to log their efforts as percentages by day or week, rather than tracking every hour or minute, simplifying the process. This data was then presented quarterly on a dashboard for easy analysis. The real challenge, however, was finding a way to remind and encourage attorneys to input their data consistently without being intrusive or disruptive.

Legal Team | LAWS

Another project with the Legal Team involved redesigning and modernizing an outdated platform called LAWS (Legal Automated Workflow System). This platform functioned as a file and matter-sharing system, providing attorneys with a transparent way to track all legal activities. We introduced a customizable dashboard tailored to individual personas, helping attorneys easily start their day and keep their tasks organized. With developers focusing on security enhancements, the platform saw smooth adoption. Additionally, the system now generates data visualizations and reports, enabling senior attorneys to conduct comprehensive quarterly reviews.

Legal Automated Workflow System | Dashboard

Legal Automated Workflow System | Categories

HR | Talent Profiler

This project was unique in that we transitioned a process previously managed in an Excel file into Workday, which presented certain creative constraints and limitations. The development team and I had to work within the capabilities of the SaaS application while meeting all the requirements to build the new Talent Profiler for HR. Despite these limitations, we delivered an intuitive landing page and a streamlined, user-friendly form that was easy to complete. The result was a straightforward solution that met the needs of HR and was deemed a success!

HR | Site Redesign

HR contacted me to help them redesign their existing site, also they would be using ServiceNow for the internal information. I first started with simple black and white wireframes with required content and fields. Added personalizing by adding variables for whomever was visiting. We did the research of what were the top asked questions in search fields to create navigation, CTA buttons and quick link icons on every page to answer all questions at ease. Also HR included and fantastic To-Do page for all new onboarding associates to walk them through their initiation and links to any document required. The acceptance of the new site was a winner for Fidelity, less calls and questions for help, information was presented in steps and easy to find. Quicklinks were eventually moved to the top as I suggested for easy access.