WALMART, 2022

New and innovative experience that surfaces and provides better access to financial tools available to all Walmart associates that will enable them to improve their long term financial health.

MY rolE

I was the Lead Product Designer responsible for the complete end-to-end process from discovery research, conceptual design, requirement gathering, collaborating on the product roadmap to wire-framing, testing, iterating, feasibility and engineering support, interaction and visual design for this feature.

I collaborated extensively with product managers, business partners, developers, design research, content designer and a junior designer to conceptualize our north star, break down the envisioned experience into a achievable MVP product roadmap and deliver an outcome driven solution.

The BACKGROUND

Most Walmart associates don’t take full advantage of the existing financial benefits available to them as an employee of Walmart. They are either not aware of the benefits available to them, do not have an easy way to access these tools or do not understand the impact these benefits might have on their long term financial well-being.

THE CHALLENGE

The Benefits team at Walmart wanted to help associates plan for a bright future by surfacing actionable insights, timeline based suggestions and company support. They wanted to incorporate these financial insights, suggestions and tools in the existing Me@Walmart associate application, a digital tool that brings together personal and work needs of over 1.4 million Walmart associates. This would provide associates 24/7 access to insights encouraging them to save for their future, increase their financial awareness and take full advantage of financial benefits available to them through Walmart. 

The Approach

The project began with understanding the business requirement, I started with discovery research - studying in-depth the various benefits Walmart offers employees to studying various competitor tools currently available in the market. I also did some user interviews with associates to understand their attitude and behavior towards financial wellbeing and the tools they used currently to manage their finances. I then brainstormed different ideas and features, working towards building a north-star concept which included a mix of existing financial benefits and also innovative ways of utilizing the various Walmart features to integrate into various other touch points. I created an end-to-end prototype for this concept, and then along with some my team created a marketing pitch for business executives and Walmart’s CEO. The concept was loved and highly appreciated, gaining us funding.

At this point, I started collaborating with various internal and external stakeholders to understand feasibility and dependencies in terms of technology, API’s and integrations. I collaborated with the product and business to create a product roadmap focused on small wins and capturing low hanging fruit for MVP. We then built an IA, and designed wireframes based on our features. I worked with our research team, to do quick usability tests with users to ensure we were designing for their needs. We also wanted to learn if associates trusted Walmart with their personal finances. Based on the feedback, we iterated on our wireframe sand created high-fidelity designs using the design system and building some feature level custom components. The financial wellbeing experience went live to over 2M associates in February 2023, and we have 222k users actively engaged with this experience.

GOALS & KEY METRICS

• Increase employee adoption

  All features used by 10-20% of all eligible associates over the course of next year

• Increase % of associates contributing

  Increase contribution by 5% to gain full advantage of 401(k) and Stocks benefits

DISCOVERY RESEARCH

It all began with a study to learn about the whole Walmart financial ecosystem and various financial tools available outside in the market like Mint, Ameritrade, Truebill, Savology, etc. I then brainstormed various ways to integrate the offerings into one holistic solution and provide financial support to associates in simple, effective and fun way.

Some of the initial ideas were:

1. Utilize associate scheduling preferences to allow associates to auto-schedule shifts to meet high demand in stores

2. Goal planning allowing associates to pick a goal and get actionable insights to work towards it

3. Insights to improve credit score

4. Financial trends as insights

5. Interactive savings fund calculator

6. Action center - where associate can see personalized recommendations

PROOF OF CONCEPT

Based on these initial ideas, I put together a north star concept showcasing an associate’s journey consisting of few scenarios. The core concept revolved around how can we showcase impactful personalized insights to an associate, where they can easily scan the information and be motivated to take action, while having the opportunity to dig deeper for more information if needed. I started with a mobile first approach targeted at hourly associates, later scaling to full-time corporate associates for both desktop as well as desktop.

I created various concepts, exploring unique visual styles. I reviewed these screens internally with other designers for feedback, trying to put together the foundation and building blocks of our final concept.

With the help of my team, we created a marketing pitch for Walmart business executives which led us to receive funding for the project.

DESIGN, TEST & ITERATE

Once we received funding, we started collaborating with engineering and product partners to give shape to the product. We reviewed the concept with our stakeholders to ground ourselves in reality. The first order of business was to understand feasibility of the proposed features, align with various internal and external partners and create a product roadmap based on the user persona. We wanted to get small winds fast by capturing low hanging fruit to build the MVP (minimal viable product) and work towards the north star incrementally.

Financial Insights

With most of the associates using the Me@Walmart application for all their day to day activities, creating actionable bite-size nuggets of information was critical. The design was focused around the idea of "financial insights" - a carousel which would recommend financial habits based on the associates personal situation. I worked closely with both internal and external API teams, to understand what data we could utilize and share with associates to build the most meaningful and seamless experience.

Dashboard experience

As various different insights were being built, the need for a one stop solution for all financial features, so associates can get a holistic idea of their paycheck as well as what is getting deducted from their paycheck became evident.

Integration and Entry Point

One of the major discussions was around IA and where the financial features would live within Me@Walmart. Various options were explored from the home page, to the hamburger menu and the Me@ tab. This was quickly validated during usability testing that the Me tab was the obvious entry point since this is where associates come to find their paystub and direct deposit features as well as other personal information.

User Testing

In collaboration with the research team, we conducted an in-depth usability study to understand associate's attitude and behavior towards financial wellbeing. We wanted to understand what associates expect from Walmart and if they trust Walmart. The content and information as well as speed of decision making were key elements we wanted to test.

DESIGN HANDOFF

After validating the experience from associates and making iterations to the designs based on their feedback, we finally were nearing the delivery. A major roadblock to delivery was ensuring this experience was inline with Walmart’s Living Design system as well as Me@Walmart application. Both of these didn’t have a consistent card pattern that we could leverage for our ‘Money Hints’ or ‘My Money‘ cards. We had to ensure that the cards were user-friendly, accessible as well as visually consistent and appealing. We explored multiple variations of cards and illustrations to come up with a custom component in line with the Living Design system which was visually consistent, had accessible tap targets and was consumer grade.

The financial wellbeing feature is currently live in both the Me@Walmart mobile as well as Me@Campus mobile and desktop application. We continue to track the user adoption, usage and feedback, iterating as new data is collected. We have already received feedback from users, who have Roth and catchup that they would love to see how that information would be added to this experience and we are currently working to iterate on the 401(k) screens.

IMPACT

Ideation, Concept Development, Strategy, Information Architecture, User Flows, Prototyping, Usability Testing, Visual Design

Walmart

Industry: FinTech

Year: 2022