Westpac Wonder

Intro

I led the design of "Pipeline" aimed at improving engagement visibility. It's success helped in unlocking platform adoption and a 52% Increase in Accepted Proposals ($1.2B in Customer Revenue).

PRODUCT

ROLE

Lead product designer

SKILLS

Product design

User research and testing

Stakeholder management

User experience design

Prototyping

Interface and interactions

TIME

12 wks | July 2021

TEAM

Belle - PM

Gareth - TL

Walid - BE

David - BE

Moe - FE

Toby

Context

Wonder is an up to date customer profile attached to a real time risk decision engine that uses regulator approved responsible lending practices to give customers a clear understanding of their borrowing options.

With each interaction with the bank, from a lending product to a credit card, Westpac collects important information about a customer's position and uses this to populate their profile. Based on that information, the risk engine calculates a live lending figure; such as the principal size of a home loan the customer is able to lend. As customers update their profile with information such as a salary increase, or a credit card with another bank, that lending figure is updated in real time.

Problem

Analysis of feedback from both customers and support teams indicated there were problems for those that had switched or were using both, the majority of which centered on visibility issues post proposal creation.

For customers

  • Users struggled to track and manage proposals effectively, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities.

  • Billing items were frequently overlooked, which, when rectified, required awkward conversations with clients about late or unexpected bills, damaging trust and professionalism for our users.

  • Key workflows felt incomplete, leaving users reliant on inefficient workarounds that were prone to errors and wasted valuable time.

For the business

  • Maintaining two parallel systems increased engineering and operational overhead.

  • Supporting two design languages, with unique components in each editor, added complexity to design and development processes.

  • For our account managers and support teams, NPE-related issues accounted for 30% of all tickets, dominating feedback and stretching resources on the front lines.

NPE…?

Goals

By analyzing customer feedback, support tickets, and stakeholder interviews, we identified recurring themes, pain points, and improvement opportunities. These insights were aligned with business goals and customer personas, then shared with leadership and the product team to drive alignment and prioritize next steps.

Support

Identify and address visibility issues related to the NPE, ensuring improved usability and customer satisfaction.

1

Support

Reduce demands on support teams by resolving common pain points and minimising customer reliance on workarounds.

2

Support

Increase adoption of the NPE, to streamline operations and reduce engineering and operational overhead.

3

Research

By analyzing customer feedback, support tickets, and stakeholder interviews, we identified recurring themes, pain points, and improvement opportunities. These insights were aligned with business goals and customer personas, then shared with leadership and the product team to drive alignment and prioritize next steps.

Sample of customer research:

The backbone of our discovery phase was engaging directly with our users through customer interviews. These conversations were carefully structured to uncover the underlying frustrations, needs, and aspirations of our core user base. By listening deeply, we sought to understand not just what wasn’t working, but why—and how it impacted their workflows and their trust in Ignition’s tools.

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

the new proposal editor proposals do not show in this list???

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

You cannot drill into any of the dashboard revenue or payments reports so it’s hard to be able to make client decisions from this limited view.

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

This feels like unnecessary extra steps to see basic reporting information.

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

want to filter which proposals I see in this section of the dashboard (see e.g. Awaiting, 100 Accepted or Archived).

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

“Feels like Ignition did a hard pivot… feels a bit like living on a building site.”

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

NPE - Drafting proposals NO longer appear under DRAFT - which is unacceptable. The placeholders are almost all gone from the Terms section which is also a big downgrade.

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

"In general, it is not easy to sort proposals by who’s a new client, what’s outstanding, etc."

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

Two steps forward... one step back.

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

“It’s not easy to pull data for this firm, and with hundreds of employees, their biggest needs are seeing proposals sent most recently.”

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

“We can only export accepted services in the services report. The proposal export doesn’t give a list of services.”

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

After 4–5 proposals we switched back… too difficult to get an overview of proposals.

sentiment_neutral

Love it but… not being able to see a list of proposals issued is a nightmare…

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

"I want to filter which proposals I see in the dashboard and have them organised better."

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

Please keep a list view of proposals so we can see what proposals were sent out and filter them.

sentiment_very_dissatisfied

"We need NPE reporting in-app. We can't operate a business blind."

SOLUTION

Account level views - Sales pipeline

With the release of Pipeline users had the tools they needed to close more deals with visibility of all proposals from all clients in a centralised view.

Quick Filters

Quick Filters were designed to go beyond simple status segmentation by embedding best practices directly into the workflow.

For instance, user testing revealed that proposals due for renewal were often overlooked, leading to missed opportunities. To address this, we introduced a dedicated Quick Filter that made these proposals instantly visible, helping users stay on top of critical tasks effortlessly.

Granular filters for complex workflows

The ‘More Filters’ section provides enhanced granularity, allowing users to tailor their experience with additional attributes that align with specific workflows. To maintain simplicity for common use cases, options are dynamically displayed as users interact, reducing cognitive load while ensuring control when needed.

Classic + New Datasets

We carefully mapped the data, aiming to combine the two datasets into a unified view. However, implementation within the project’s timeframes proved technically unfeasible. Instead, we organised the data into two tabs, allowing users to switch seamlessly between them—an effective solution given the constraints.

Fast Follows: Enhancing Actions and Workflow Efficiency

Upon release, we closely monitored feedback and delivered updates that enabled users to:

Perform bulk actions like sending or renewing multiple proposals.

Access contextual actions directly within pipeline for efficiency.

Key Results

Pipeline tackled real user pain points with practical solutions, helping users work smarter and more efficiently. By listening to feedback and iterating along the way, we built something that had impact to both users and the business.

Here’s what it achieved:

Volume of accepted proposals

Improved user experience for managing proposals drove higher engagement, resulting in a 67% increase in accepted proposals—from 600,000 to 1 million in one year—and generating $1.3 billion in additional customer revenue.

600

Accepted proposals

Operational Efficiency

NPE/Proposal visibility related support requests dropped from 30% to just 5% allowing KAMs to prioritise on higher-impact work.

User Engagement

Achieved 47% daily active users (DAU), surpassing our 25% target, with ~80% of subscribed practices actively using the platform.

0

Daily active users

Next, view the process behind the work:

IGNITIONS

SALES

PIPELINE

PIPELINE

PROCESS

Contributions

I led the end-to-end design of Pipeline over 12 weeks, contributing across discovery, shaping, and delivery phases to ensure a user-centric, impactful solution.

Discovery

Research to Analyse and Prioritise Opportunities

  • Analysed customer feedback and support tickets to identify recurring themes, focus areas, and interview candidates.

  • Synthesised findings to uncover key opportunities and areas for improvement.

  • Mapped insights to business objectives and personas, ensuring alignment between customer needs and organisational goals.

  • Presented findings to leadership and product teams to drive prioritisation and next steps.

Shaping

Shaping generates and refines solutions, ensuring desirability, feasibility, and viability.

  • Mapped user pain points to solutions, focusing on visibility and usability improvements.

  • Conducted competitor analysis to identify differentiation opportunities.

  • Prototyped and iterated concepts through user testing and design sparring sessions.

  • Collaborated with engineering to assess feasibility and align on technical constraints.

  • Prepared detailed specifications and presentations to guide development kickoff.

Delivery and Post-Release

Seamless Execution, Usability Validation, and Impact Assessment

  • Led a delivery kickoff workshop with engineering to ensure clear communication and alignment on implementation plans.

  • Collaborated with go-to-market, support, and marketing teams to ensure a smooth release. This included advising on content creation, producing artefacts to support release notes, drafting support articles, and facilitating internal communications.

  • Conducted final usability testing and internal unit testing to identify and address edge cases, ensuring launch readiness and/or capturing future continuous improvements.

  • Monitored post-launch metrics and customer feedback to evaluate the impact of implemented solutions.

  • Provided actionable recommendations for ongoing iterations and future initiatives to ensure continuous product improvement.

The goal was to drive adoption of the new proposal editor by addressing customer pain points around account level proposal visibility, and in doing so increase operational efficiency by reducing related support requests.

Additionally, we achieved a 47% daily active user (DAU) rate, far surpassing the 25% target, with approximately 80% of subscribed practices actively utilising the platform.

While the initial focus was on adoption and efficiency, the most significant outcome—aided by continuous improvements shortly after its release—was the 67% increase in accepted proposals. With improvements to the user experience enabling increased task completion, users were able to send more proposals resulting in accepted proposals rising from 650,000 to 1 million within a year, generating an additional $1.3 billion in customer revenue.


650K

Accepted proposals

Operational Efficiency

NPE/Proposal visibility related support requests dropped from 30% to just 5% allowing KAMs to prioritise higher-impact work.

30

Related support tickets

User Engagement

Achieved 47% daily active users (DAU), surpassing our target of 25%, with ~80% of subscribed practices using pipeline each month.

Daily active users