Managing $850 billion
Workforce
Research
Strategy
Innovation
Production
Key result
Built a user-centered design team and shipped four applications.
As Interim Director of Design, I worked with Geode’s Product team to build a new, user-centered process for developing internal software, hired a three-person UX team, and shipped a suite of four portfolio management applications.
16
months
3
hires
4
applications
These initiatives brought user-centered thinking into Geode’s software development process; testing with users and stakeholders before shipping reduced errors in reading data and making trades.
Because Geode operates in a highly-regulated space, details and images of product design work can’t be shared.
Workforce
Introducing a powerful new tool
Geode had never formally used design in their product development, so I staged my introduction of the practice. I started with a series of workshops to lead Geode’s employees through the process hands-on. This prepared the organization for a different way of thinking and working, and would make interactions with the UX team smoother.
Research
Identifying, defining internal user groups
The work began with eight hour-long group interviews with each of Geode’s teams. These provided a data baseline that enabled the product team to determine which teams and opportunities to pursue first.
Portfolio managers: Responsible for the day-to-day planning and management of Geode’s 200+ funds
Traders: Receive and plan trade requests from portfolio managers
Senior leadership: Oversee, review and approve portfolio actions and trades
Risk and performance analysts: Identifies potential for adverse events and analyzes trade outcomes
Compliance officers: Ensures all activity adheres to SEC and other regulation
Trade operations: Facilitates, oversees and executes trades
Business development: Provides information for Geode’s clients, the largest of which is Fidelity
From there, the product team undertook a more focused discovery, synthesis and testing regimen (as described below), using Productboard as a primary means for storing user insights and grooming sprint-delineated PRDs (product requirement documents).
Strategy
Building systems that scale
Automating product development
Working with Product and Engineering leads, I tailored a user-centered design process for Geode to guide product development and provide cross-functional teams with a shared understanding of roles and responsibilities.
To support this process we combined:
Miro for discovery, synthesis and ideation
Productboard for grooming, scoping and resourcing
Rapid UI deployment
Since Geode’s tools are internal, I forked IBM’s open-source Carbon design system. Starting with a comprehensive and well-documented set of components and patterns shaved months off our startup time. Below are some key modifications we made to the dark mode theme.
Aesthetic principles
Currency display
Negative values
Data table
Date and time
Functionality documentation
In addition to standing the system up, I created a system of governance and led biweekly design system team meetings comprised of UX designers and front-end engineers.
Innovation
Moving past spreadsheets
Innovation – departing from the first or safest answer – is particularly challenging in finance, where a single error can cost hundreds of billions of dollars or a regulatory audit. Ideation at Geode often took the form of extended data analysis, current state mapping, and input from data and engineering teams.
Each designer led discreet ideation sessions in their cross-functional team, with front-end engineering providing the strongest support and willingness to explore even far-fetched or unorthodox solutions. While spreadsheet-like grids formed much of our initial concepts, we were able to depart from that convention when we ideated thoroughly.
Business development
Working with Business Development and HR, I supported the firm’s logo redesign (with designers The McQuades) and a website relaunch (with design agency North Street and development firm Beacon Digital).
Production
From theoretical systems to working software
With the right team and processes in place, we hit the on switch and released minimum viable products (MVPs) for four portfolio manager apps:
Portfolio Dashboard: Portfolio managers (PMs) determine if funds are out of tolerance
Cash Management: PMs predict cash flows in and out of their funds
Portfolio Manager Out-of-Office: PMs secure fund management coverage when away and provide crucial information about a fund’s status to their coverer
Fund setup and tolerance setting: PMs and senior leaders set up new funds and edit existing funds’ tolerances
Geode continues to evolve their development processes and modernize their internal software.
Next steps
Organizational transformation is a long-term investment, and while I was able to bring basic design thinking into Geode, I’d recommend these next steps to fully reap its benefits:
Evolve a new design system: IBM’s Carbon was a good start, but users require a high level of differentiation from other UIs, specifically increased data density (more information on a single screen) and reduced font sizes.
More flexible user testing: Geode’s employees have very busy, inflexible schedules. Our user research should take the form of detailed, unmoderated tests where users are able to provide feedback on their own schedule.
Increased ideation: Finance (understandably) prioritizes getting the “right” answer right away. Cross-functional teams attempted to identify the right or best design solution very quickly, sometimes in just minutes, without fully exploring all possibilities. Then we’d get to the end of the design process and, needing more options to satisfy emergent user or business needs, go back to the ideation phase. This felt like going backwards to folks, and some became frustrated.
