Example
St. James place
Context
St James’s Place is a large financial services organisation where retirement planning products are often complex and difficult for non advisers to understand. Customers visiting the site frequently lacked confidence in knowing what steps to take, while internal teams faced high delivery costs, regulatory constraints and dependency on external agencies.
The challenge was to improve clarity and confidence for customers while balancing compliance, stakeholder alignment and long term maintainability.
The problem
Customers with little experience of retirement planning struggled to:
understand financial language designed for advisers
assess whether retirement products were relevant to them
move confidently from information to action
At the same time, existing tools were expensive to run, difficult to evolve, and not designed to be reused across future initiatives.
My role
I led design across discovery and delivery, working within the marketing team while partnering closely with:
internal stakeholders across multiple departments
a copywriter to simplify language
external agencies responsible for development and marketing delivery
My responsibility was to bring clarity to both the customer experience and the internal delivery model.
Key decisions
Simplify before optimise
Rather than adding more functionality, I focused first on simplifying language, flow and inputs so users could understand outcomes without financial expertise.
Design for reuse
I designed the calculator as a flexible system rather than a one off tool, allowing fields, logic and outputs to be adapted for future calculators. This reduced future cost and dependency on agencies.
Meet users where they are
Alongside the main calculator, I designed lightweight lead generation tools that could sit inline with content or stand alone, helping users articulate goals before committing to a full calculation.
Align early to move faster later
Given the number of stakeholders, I ran workshops and regular reviews to surface concerns early, reducing late stage friction and speeding up sign off.
Key decisionsWhat I delivered
A redesigned retirement calculator with clearer language and a more intuitive flow
Supporting lead generation tools aimed at users with low confidence or knowledge
A clearer pathway structure for career and retirement related journeys
Prototypes and documentation used to align stakeholders and brief external development teams
Outcomes
Reduced reliance on expensive externally hosted tools
Improved clarity and confidence for users exploring retirement options
Faster stakeholder sign off due to earlier alignment and shared understanding
A reusable foundation for future calculators and retirement content
