Learning to deliver sites and content for Investment Specialists using a robust user centred design methodology
The User Centred practices that existed at Edward Jones Investments were the most robust and mature that I have experienced in my UX career. In terms of the Nielsen Norman Maturity Model it firmly sat within Stage 6 – User Driven at both Team and Organisation Level. I was able to re-use the established research, design and testing methodologies on multiple projects at a time and repeated this many times over the years I worked there (2004 – 2010).
My role was to deliver informational sites that covered topics primarily aimed at an audience of Financial Advisers of varying experience levels. This enabled them to comprehend all the aspects of the topics presented to them. In turn they would use the knowledge and information we provided to them to engage their clients: High Net Worth Individuals and everyday private investors.
Building and training a network of Subject Matter Experts as Contributors
Here I grew, assembled and trained a team of knowledgeable Subject Matter Experts from across the various UK Departments . They were engaged to provide clear, unambiguous guidance content for the entire network of Financial Advisers with varying degrees of experience and knowledge. All the information had to be carefully organised and structured to enable rapid location and easy knowledge absorption.
Learning and developing UX skills and abilities from knowledgeable specialists and mentors.
The company was new to the UK market but over the course of my time there, grew from 100 to 400 UK wide branches. It had been going about 100 years in North America, there were more than 3000 branches spread across US and Canada. The Global UCD team for which I was the UK representative had senior members and specialists in each of the key UX disciplines in the Head Offices in the US and Canada.
We had experienced specialists in:
- Interface and Interaction Design
- Information Architecture
- User Research and Testing
- Content development
- UX Leadership
Over the course of my time at Edward Jones, I was trained by each of these experts in their specialist fields. I first became knowledgeable, then competent and over time highly skilled in each of these separate disciplines. As the only member of the team in the UK, I had to become adept in all these areas of UX. This training and this guidance was key to my development. By delivering sites and practicing these skills and then training others, I became a highly effective UX generalist with skills and abilities approaching the specialists who trained and mentored me.
Building Networks, Trust and Delivering Quality
I became an expert in stakeholder management and building trusted and enduring working relationships over the course of my time at Edward Jones. I matured both my understanding of how organisations, teams and the individuals, that they were made up of, worked and interacted. Through the relationships I developed across the entire UK business as well as the US and Canadian offices, I became connected and aware of the functioning of every part of the business.
I gained a reputation for delivering effectively and consistently. This was recognised amongst my colleagues and the network of contributors I had built. If there were any doubts about the approach we took to deliver from new contributors, they were encouraged to speak to existing contributors as to the efficacy of the practices. This shielding through reputation, enabled me to become adept at delivering quality reliably and ensuring that sites were effective and timely.
These 6 years at this highly respected and effectively disciplined organisation gave me an outstanding underpinning to my UX knowledge. This experience has stood me in excellent stead to both observe, analyse and determine the appropriate actions in order to deliver the type of UX practices that had become positively endemic at Edward Jones. I received a firm-wide award for the work I did delivering a brand new version of the UK intranet and a UK awards for managing the collective delivery of a site to support the firm’s implementation of ISA reforms and MiFID regulations.
Seeing, working and performing to a high standard in an environment of excellence, set a target for me to build at every organisation I have worked at since.