Northwestern Mutual
NM Connect — Global Utilities
I developed the concept, and led design & strategy for a series of multitasking tools housed within the right rail of NM Connect. These tools further unify the experience by improving productivity, visibility, and communication across all roles, and assisting users whenever, and wherever they need. The utilities extend to the mobile app, giving users an on-the-go extension of NM Connect.
To introduce such a new concept, we began with a vision & narrative to present and circulate amongst product, engineering, and business leadership & stakeholders. The Global Utilities MVP successfully shipped in Q2 of 2020; a group utility features shipped on the native mobile app in 2021.
View Global Utilities Vision Deck | View Global Utilities Prototype: Desktop | Mobile
Vision
The advisor, Britt, gets a notification that one of her clients has referred their friend, Daniel, to her. Clicking into the details, she sees information that helps her decide whether or not to accept the referral as a prospective client.
With one tap, Britt accepts the referral. This makes her the fastest in her office to reach 500 clients + prospects.
With the prospective client added to her book, Britt assigns the task of preparing for their first meeting to her associate, Leila.
While Leila is prepping for the meeting, Britt reaches out to Daniel using the communications tool in the utilities panel. An AI assistant recognizes that Britt is working with Daniel to schedule the meeting, and suggests times from her calendar so she doesn’t need to leave the chat to look for times herself.
Daniel chooses an appointment time from the options provided by the digital assistant, and the meeting is automatically added to Britt’s calendar. Leila also has access to the appointment, where she can attach the meeting prep materials she’s been working on.
MVP
Internal Platform Developer & Integration Site
Following the vision and subsequent buy-in, we ran a workshop to identify key features, and establish a timeline from MVP to future state.
Top Level Global Actions
Top Level Contextual Quick Actions
Detail Level Actions
MVP Designs
One of the requirements for Global Utilities was to ensure client data wasn’t being shared or seen by those who did not have permission to view it. With these new multitasking features, there was concern from Legal & Compliance that users could inadvertently expose client data simply by opening the utilities panel. It took many cross-functional meetings, workshops, and iterations to satisfy their concerns to move forward.
Notifications
Though there was much back-and-forth, I ultimately arrived at the idea of snoozing or disabling access to the panel (Support and Settings excluded). Users could access the feature via the Settings tool, toggle the panel to “Snooze”, and choose the length of time the app is disabled. Once the Microsoft API is ingested, users will be able to sync their calendars to Settings, and Global Utilities will disable automatically with every client meeting scheduled.
Settings
Fast Follows
With all of the research and feedback gathered early on, I was very confident in the value Global Utilities would provide. I encouraged the team to develop the feature with the expectation that Legal would eventually approve our solution to their privacy & security concerns. Because of that, we were able to ship the MVP within a week of Legal’s approval.
Client 360
Chat
Following its release, user feedback was strong and we were able to push out additional tools quickly. The first two additional apps were a client validation app called Client 360, and a reimagined support system for the Field and Home Office users. Chat, and Calendaring were in development at the time I left the organization.
Field & Home Office Support
Calendar
Mobile
To help the field be more productive and efficient, we built a native mobile app that made leads and global utilities the primary features. Rather than simply creating a mobile version of NM Connect, we wanted the mobile experience to be an on-the-go companion to the desktop experience — make it easier to accept leads, schedule appointments, communicate with support staff, and so on.
My Day (productivity page)
Chat
During my last year with Northwestern Mutual, I led this effort as well. I was the primary hands-on designer, as well as leading and overseeing the work of another designer. In less than 9 months, we conceptualized, built, tested, and shipped the app. Whereas on the legacy desktop experience leads could take 3 days to be accepted, on the new NM Connect mobile app leads were being accepted in as little as 7 seconds.
Utilities menu
Calendar
Client validation
Field & Home Office support