Dimensional.com Audience Segmentation
Under business direction, collaborated with Product Managers, Developers and led Junior Designer in delivering final files for Design Language System and for developers.
WHO
Individual Investors and Financial Professionals
WHY
Dimensional needs to know what type of users are coming to Dimensional.com to better understand who the site is serving and what type of content should be offered.
WHAT
Competitive Research
User flows
Desktop prototype (InVision)
Breakpoint deliverables
Business Strategy
Historically, Dimensional’s marketing and public presence has catered towards a strictly professional audience (financial advisors and institutional investors). They’ve been around for 40+ years and are trying to expand their offerings to a younger generation. Dimensional’s products have solely served high-net-worth individuals or large institutions until late 2021 when they launched their first ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds).
This type of investment piqued the public's interest as it is more financially accessible and Dimensional.com's traffic dramatically increased. As they launch more ETFs and aim to acquire a younger client base it is imperative to understand the mindsets of this new demographic to provide an engaging experience that builds trust.
How can Dimensional broaden their communications to speak to the goals and needs of Individual investors?
Validations Needed
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How can we figure out what type of user is visiting the public site?
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Is it worth it to create distinct experiences for Individual Investors and Financial Professionals?
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How are industry competitors handling this UX challenge?
Competitive Research
Five out of seven competitors segment their audience and provide different content based on a user's selection.
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Capital Group
First time visitors land on a geo-located splash page to select which role with which they most identify. Returning visitors change location and role by selecting a single button.
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Blackrock
First time visitors are taken directly to the Individual's home page. The audience and location selection options are two separate functions.
We considered defaulting everyone to the Individual's experience but thought it would skew our analytics too much. We want to know what type of users are coming to the site so we can better understand who Dimensional.com is serving and what type of content performs best.
Even though it would cause first-time visitors slightly more friction, we decided to require users to self-select their audience type before viewing site content. The assumption is that it would be worth it to the business to know exactly what our visitors self-identify as, so that we can provide them with the most relevant experience while on the site.
Key Takeaways
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Dimensional decided to begin by offering a distinct experience for individual investors vs. professional investors on the public site.
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Analytics and future testing may prove that this adds too much friction to the experience.
Planning
Dimensional exists across the globe, and being a financial entity, must follow strict regulations to meet legal requirements and accommodate for multi-country and multi-language versions of the site. A seemingly simple request to bifurcate the experience quickly becomes complicated when you need to factor in all legal and country-specific nuances. To help us stay organized and aligned, Design worked with PMs to create a matrix and user flows to account for primary and secondary (edge cases) user scenarios.
User flows and lo-fidelity wireframes helped us quickly visualize touchpoints we would need to design and build for. This example shows how an Individual versus a Professional might access different types of content depending on a user's preferred location.
Key Takeaways
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The matrix and user flows were handy when communicating with developers. Identifying primary paths vs. edge cases helped us keep our conversations about "what-ifs" focused based on the path priority.
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These artifacts helped everyone visualize what scenarios needed to be accounted for and what developers needed to build, what logic needed to be built.
Prototype
The next phase was to begin creating wireframes and eventually high-fidelity screens to account for each step of the journey. For each screen, we had to consider the experience for different languages and locations. This meant adding language selection options and providing adequate space for legal disclosures.
Assembling the final prototype helped everyone see what users would experience every step of the way—from a first time visitor to a visitor needing to change countries or languages, this prototype had it covered. The prototype aided PMs to write requirements and developers to get a sense of the whole flow vs. just a single component at each breakpoint.
Conclusion
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A visual representation is so much more valuable than endless, circular conversations about “what ifs” — once we had solidified the matrix and accompanying user flows, the questions and concerns were quelled. Developers and business stakeholders felt much more at ease as everyone was aligned and expectations were set.
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Ideally we would have been able to do some testing before Development started building this first iteration. Given the tight timeline driven by the business we will have to assess analytics and get feedback post-launch.
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We were able to use this opportunity to improve usability by using color combinations that meet AA accessibility standards on the primary navigation.
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We are excited to see what we will learn about users coming to our site:
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What type of content is most consumed as Publishing begins tailoring it for specific audience types?
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What audience type will be most common—Individual vs. Professional?
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Can we A/B test different audience segmentation methods?
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