Background and Challenges
Northwestern Mutual, a Fortune 500 company with over 160 years of history, was at a turning point in its digital strategy. The company’s CEO recognized the need to evolve its digital capabilities in retirement planning and initiated a major transformation initiative. As a long-standing EY client, Northwestern Mutual engaged our team to help drive this digital evolution.
As Design Director at EY, I led our team in creating a prototype to secure stakeholder buy-in, generate enthusiasm, and accelerate decision-making for Northwestern Mutual’s digital transformation in retirement planning.
This project aimed to address three key challenges:
- Limited detailed planning capabilities for financial representatives
- Inefficient process for generating and obtaining client signatures on reports
- Suboptimal functionality for withdrawal strategy optimization across account types
Our goal was to advance Northwestern Mutual’s retirement experience by showcasing innovative approaches, demonstrating value for both clients and financial representatives, and aligning company leadership on the future of retirement planning tools.
Approach: Visualizing the Future Through Prototyping
I oversaw the creation of a clickable Figma prototype featuring:
- Scenario Analyzer: Visualizing various retirement scenarios
- Dynamic Strategies: Personalized recommendations for asset allocation and risk management
- Retirement Projections: Customized forecasts based on individual circumstances
- Income Calculator and Withdrawal Optimizer: Maximizing income while minimizing taxes
- Sales Opportunity Tracker: Identifying potential upselling avenues
+ Wireframes
+ High Fidelity Design
+ Prototyping
Strategic Implementation & Results
The CEO used the prototype in a key meeting with top executives, including the Chief Customer Officer and Chief Innovation Officer. This strategic presentation:
- Provided a tangible representation of the vision for retirement services
- Facilitated gathering feedback from top executives on proposed enhancements
- Aligned the company’s leadership on the future direction of retirement planning tools
- Initiated discussions on integrating these innovations into existing systems and processes
The prototype demonstration proved highly effective:
- It secured buy-in for further exploration and development
- Highlighted potential benefits across the organization
- Successfully visualized complex financial concepts
Ultimately, our proposed solution aimed to enhance client experience, increase efficiency for financial representatives, and boost Northwestern Mutual’s competitive advantage in digital retirement planning.
This project demonstrated the power of prototyping to transform abstract ideas into tangible representations. The prototype visualized complex financial planning concepts, making them accessible to stakeholders and helping persuade buy-in.
By creating an interactive prototype, we:
- Presented a clear vision of potential digital solutions
- Facilitated meaningful discussions about future retirement planning tools
- Accelerated decision-making processes within the organization
This approach bridged the gap between conceptual thinking and practical implementation in financial services. It enabled Northwestern Mutual’s leadership to experience proposed innovations firsthand, leading to informed decisions about future digital initiatives.
The project’s success reinforces the value of prototyping in UX design, especially when working with complex systems in traditional industries. It illustrates how this technique can effectively communicate ideas, align stakeholders, and drive innovation, even in well-established organizations facing digital transformation challenges.
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