Reimagine TIAA’s Life Event Journeys
TIAA is a leading financial services provider specializing in retirement and investment solutions. To enhance usability, TIAA sought to consolidate life event-related content into a cohesive experience. The goal was to reimagine and transform the user journey through straightforward pathways, engaging storytelling, and clear guidance.
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My Role
Lead UX Designer
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The Team
UX Designers, Product Strategist, Content Strategy, Full-stack Developers, and Project Manager
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Timeline
This 13-week project includes wireframe, design, prototype, user testing, and annotation.
Impact
I developed a design system and leveraged it to create two experiences for TIAA. Following the release of these designs, the company saw significant improvements in content engagement, boosted SEO, and reduced bounce rates.
Problem Statement
Currently, individual life event journeys are fragmented and lack cohesion, making it harder for users to connect with their financial goals.
01
Content Overload and Lack of Engagement
TIAA’s life event-related content is overly text-heavy and static, which makes it difficult for users to engage with and navigate. The lack of interactivity hinders the ability to create a more intuitive and user-friendly experience, leaving users feeling overwhelmed as they try to understand their financial journey.
02
Disconnected Life Event Experiences
The individual life event journeys are fragmented and lack cohesion, forcing users to piece together their financial path. To address this, TIAA needed to consolidate these life events into a single, flexible flow that provides clear guidance and a unified, intuitive experience.
Prototype
Start with
Selecting live events
Explore
Financial Journey
Design Process
I led the design process end-to-end, including identifying user types and pain points, crafting user journeys, developing wireframes, defining user testing, and refining designs through iterative improvements.
Based on the user types defined in the previous phase, I focused on the user journeys of ‘Unenrolled and Prospective Users’. During client workshops, we identified that significant pain points for this group were in the Discovery and Exploration stages, which led us to prioritize these phases in the subsequent process.
Based on assumptions about the typical user’s habits in this user group—such as the number of life events they might select at once, whether they prefer single or multiple actions or their approach to exploring content—I designed three user flows using low-fidelity wireframes.
After a workshop with my teammates, I narrowed the options down to two. I tested these with coworkers and friends unfamiliar with TIAA to gather insights into a typical user's preferences. Using high-fidelity wireframes, they navigated the flow and rated their experience. Option B received higher scores, which I presented to the team and clients for validation from a business perspective.
With the user flow validated, I explored two designs: one leveraging the existing design system for familiarity and another using an interactive flow for an immersive experience. A/B testing showed Version A was more intuitive, while Version B was visually preferred. While the testing result doesn't give an obvious answer, I grouped with team members to evaluate the feasibility and future usage from design, business, and development perspectives and decided to go for Version A but with a design reskin to align more with Version B.
Highlights
✨Featured Journeys
I led the team in delivering a scalable and flexible design system featuring 13 modules to support all Life Events content. This system not only accommodates the existing content but is also designed to be reusable for future additions. Below are selected journeys that demonstrate how the modules are applied in context.
Functional Documentation
I collaborated with developers to determine the best approach for documenting user flows, interactions, and population methods, considering the complexity of this experience. Through detailed annotations that captured every scenario, including edge cases and logic, I ensured clarity, minimized confusion, and supported a seamless development process.
