Translating Complex Financial Technology Into a More Accessible Product Experience
Company
TIFIN AG
2024
Overview
TIFIN AG is a financial technology company focused on helping advisors, bankers, and wealth managers drive stronger client engagement and organic growth through AI-powered tools and personalized investment solutions. As the lead product designer working alongside a small cross-functional team, I helped develop a CRM platform from the ground up over an accelerated six-month timeline, focused on simplifying complex workflows and creating a more intuitive customer experience for financial professionals.
Business Context
Wealth management firms continue to face increasing pressure to improve personalization, strengthen client relationships, and drive organic growth in an increasingly competitive market. The opportunity was to create a platform experience that helped financial professionals more efficiently manage communication, identify engagement opportunities, and streamline client relationship workflows without adding unnecessary complexity.
THE CHALLENGE
Organic growth remains a persistent challenge across the wealth management industry, where many firms struggle to maintain meaningful client engagement and scalable communication systems. One of the primary project challenges was balancing customization and platform flexibility with usability and simplicity, particularly within a fast-moving product development timeline.
The platform needed to simplify complex workflows while helping users feel more confident navigating client data, communication recommendations, and growth opportunities across the customer journey.
THE APPROACH
Working closely with product, engineering, and leadership teams, I helped shape a user-centered CRM experience designed around clarity, usability, and communication efficiency. The overall experience prioritized intuitive navigation, customizable workflows, automation, real-time insights, and tools that supported stronger client engagement while reducing friction across key tasks.
User feedback and stakeholder conversations helped identify several recurring pain points, particularly around fragmented workflows, inefficient lead management, and difficulty maintaining personalized client communication at scale. In response, the platform experience focused on simplifying onboarding, streamlining lead segmentation, centralizing client information, and creating communication recommendation tools designed to help users deliver more personalized and timely outreach.
A major focus of the experience was reducing cognitive overload and helping users more confidently navigate highly technical workflows and data-heavy interactions. The platform prioritized hierarchy, guided interactions, and workflow simplicity to create a more approachable and trustworthy experience for financial professionals.
Key Areas of Focus
Designed a streamlined onboarding experience that guided users toward personalized growth strategies based on their business goals and workflow needs.
Developed dashboard structures that helped advisors, bankers, and wealth managers more quickly access relevant client information and engagement opportunities.
Created communication recommendation experiences that made it easier for users to identify timely, data-informed client outreach opportunities.
Built scalable interface systems using TIFIN AG’s existing design language to maintain consistency across the platform experience.
CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION
Because the platform was developed on an accelerated timeline, close collaboration across product, engineering, leadership, and stakeholder teams was essential throughout the process. My role extended beyond interface design into helping align user needs, business objectives, platform structure, and customer-facing communication across the evolving product experience.
Throughout the project, I collaborated directly with developers through weekly working sessions, annotated Figma files for implementation clarity, organized scalable design systems, and provided ongoing feedback during development to ensure alignment between the product vision and final execution.
PROTOTYPING & VALIDATION
I developed high-fidelity interactive prototypes to help visualize the platform experience prior to development and support stakeholder presentations, product demos, and industry conference showcases. These prototypes became an important tool for gathering early feedback, validating workflows, refining communication patterns, and generating buy-in before launch.
When designing a CRM for financial professionals, I prioritized an intuitive interface, customization options, automation for efficiency, real-time insights, seamless integrations, and personalized engagement features to enhance workflow, decision-making, and client relationship management.
Product & Customer Experience Strategy
When designing the CRM experience, the focus extended beyond usability alone. The goal was to create a platform that helped financial professionals more effectively manage relationships, improve communication, and identify growth opportunities without adding unnecessary complexity to their workflows. Key priorities included intuitive navigation, customizable workflows, automation, real-time insights, and communication tools that supported stronger client engagement.
User Insights & Workflow Priorities
User feedback and stakeholder conversations helped identify several recurring pain points across advisors, bankers, and wealth managers, particularly around fragmented workflows, inefficient lead management, and difficulty maintaining personalized client communication at scale. In response, the platform experience prioritized simplified onboarding, streamlined lead segmentation, centralized client information, and communication recommendation tools designed to help users deliver more personalized and timely outreach.
To support both user needs and project timelines, I mapped key workflows and prioritized the highest-impact interactions that would deliver the greatest immediate value to users while supporting broader business goals around engagement and growth.
Information Architecture & Platform Structure
Working closely with the internal team, I developed the platform architecture and dashboard structure through multiple rounds of iteration based on evolving user flows, stakeholder feedback, and feature priorities. The overall experience was designed to simplify navigation and reduce friction across core workflows while creating a more scalable and intuitive system for managing client relationships.
Wireframing & Interface Design
The wireframing process focused heavily on aligning the platform experience with the real-world workflows of advisors and wealth managers, ensuring that key actions, data, and communication tools remained accessible and easy to understand throughout the product journey. During the UI design phase, I utilized TIFIN AG’s existing design system and component library to create a clean, modern interface that balanced usability, clarity, and brand consistency across the platform.
Collaboration & Development Handoff
The project involved close collaboration with product, engineering, and leadership teams throughout the entire design and development process. I worked directly with developers through weekly working sessions, annotated Figma files for implementation clarity, organized scalable design systems, and provided ongoing feedback during development to ensure alignment between the product vision and final execution.
Prototyping & Validation
I developed high-fidelity interactive prototypes to help visualize the platform experience prior to development and support stakeholder presentations, product demos, and industry conference showcases. These prototypes became a valuable tool for gathering early feedback, validating workflows, refining communication patterns, and generating buy-in before launch.