How Fidelity used design thinking to perfect its website
Frederick S. Leichter, chief customer experience officer at Fidelity Investments, reports in the Harvard Business Review on how design thinking practices have helped Fidelity gain important insight into meeting customer needs.
“In a matter of weeks, [Stanford University d.school] student teams conducted research, created prototypes and tested numerous concepts. The ideas included “future visualizers,” candy bars for savers, grandparent graduation gift packs, dynamic charts to illustrate savings progress, and a financial education program for kindergartners. The students found that even the brightest graduate students are turned off by complexity, financial jargon and fine print; Gen Y-ers, surrounded by tangible and virtual media, tend to lack reward recognition for long-term behavior and need motivation; and invariably, Baby Boomers not only remember their first savings-bank passbook, but have saved it and can find it to show you.
Ultimately, Fidelity used images of a 1970s bank passbook to create new ways to illustrate balance history and performance data on its website, giving customers positive feedback and providing motivation for achieving their savings and investment goals.”
