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Launching zero-to-one user research
7 min read . Sep 27, 2024
TL;DR:
NetX360+, a wealth management platform—widely used by financial advisors—was a powerful yet fragmented tool. My role was to optimize the user experience through a structured user research program, which led to a 12-point CXi score increase and improved engineering efficiency, minimizing feature rollbacks. This user-driven approach informed our forward-thinking product strategy, aligning the platform with modern standards and securing its market leadership.
Company
Pershing LLC
Year, Time
2017, 5 mos.
My Role
UX Research Lead
The What & The Why
NetX360+ is the flagship product of BNY Mellon | Pershing, serving 120,000 users in the broker-dealer and Registered Investment Advisory space. With over 400 features, it handles millions of transactions daily. However, it was clear that the platform suffered from disconnected workflows, outdated UX patterns, and inconsistent user experiences, leading to reduced adoption and increased support requests.
When I took the lead role, the team was relying on informal feedback methods that resulted in inconsistent improvements. Recognizing the need for modernization, we shifted to a structured user research approach—redefining user journeys, improving the UX, and aligning the platform with modern user expectations.
The How
Overcoming Early Challenges
In the early stages, I encountered significant challenges with identifying research methods that resonated with the organization.
Web-based unmoderated testing (UserTesting) raised concerns about participant quality.
User discovery interviews were too broad, yielding few actionable insights.
Customer service feedback, while useful, was reactive and focused on features rather than overall user experience.
The biggest challenge was that research methods were not integrated with the product development timeline. The development process relied on short ideation cycles without user validation, leading to untested ideas reaching production.
To address these issues, I developed a UX research program focused on creating a holistic user journey for both our front-office and operational users. Key solutions included:
User Interviews: Targeted at understanding user roles and contexts.
Shadowing & Observations: Conducted with strategic firms to understand real-time usage.
Remote Usability Testing: Focused on high-traffic, high-revenue features.
5-Second Testing: For landing pages and information hierarchy validation.
A/B Testing: To optimize personalization concepts.
Validation Demos: Presented to advisory boards and focus groups to test strategy.
This program enabled us to conduct more user research studies in 5 months than in the previous 5 years combined, aligning research objectives with business, product, and customer-facing teams.
Streamlining User Recruitment
Recruiting users posed a significant challenge due to red tape, involving client-side approvals from executives and branch managers. To expedite this, I utilized contacts from a feedback repository and direct contacts from company conferences where users had expressed interest in providing product feedback. These efforts resulted in swift stakeholder approval.
I actively promoted upcoming research sessions across the company, ensuring widespread awareness through calendar invites and day-of reminders, which significantly boosted participation.
User Recruitment Process
Research Participants Breakdown
Deep Dive Discovery Sessions
To deepen our user insights, I developed a structured process that leveraged lead designers and product managers as secondary researchers. This was crucial as we lacked dedicated full-time researchers at the program's outset.
The new research process sharpened our focus on usability issues while broadening our understanding of user behavior. To move beyond surface-level findings, we integrated behavioral and attitudinal questions into our discovery sessions. For example, during tests on a retirement planning feature, we also explored users' personal financial planning strategies and concerns. This approach helped us connect product-specific feedback with broader user needs.
Additionally, I partnered with sales and customer success teams to conduct on-site visits, allowing us to better understand users' environments and workflows. These field visits added depth to our research and enabled us to address both practical usability challenges and more complex behavioral insights.
Notes from Field Visits
Research Findings summarized per function/area
Actionabe recommendations to each service/pod
Findings doc of a specific area
Mapping the User Journey
The discovery sessions highlighted major gaps like disconnected workflows and outdated UX patterns, leading to the decision to hire external expertise. I acted as the bridge between internal teams and the design agency, facilitating workshops and synthesizing findings to map new macro journeys.
The user journey map integrated both discovery research and product analysis, identifying key moments of truth and exposing unmet needs.
In parallel, I identified gaps in our user personas, leading a side initiative with the design agency to redefine these personas based on modern advisor behaviors.
The macro journey
Actors and actions - Zoomed in
Painpoints by actors - Zoomed in
Advisor persona focused on relationships
Advisor persona focused on servicing
The Results
A Strategic Roadmap
While we had a solid research process, a clear vision was missing. To resolve this, I organized Design Sprints focused on vision-setting. We produced a product prototype that outlined five key focus areas, which was presented to leadership and continues to inform project planning.
The research introduced two new strategies:
Cross-Platform Strategy: Connecting advisor tools through a unified web-based app using Electron.
Hyper-Personalization: Personalizing content and navigation based on user personas and usage data.
Blueprint of the vision designed in Figma
A Research Habit
Historically, user research was not taken seriously. To change this perception, I began each all-hands presentation by revisiting learning goals and emphasizing thoughtful recruitment. This approach strengthened the credibility of our work and led to our presence at company-wide conferences, where feedback and discovery kiosks became a regular feature.
Discovery desks to deep dive on experiences - 2018
Interactive feedback booth I created - 2019
The Research Toolkit
To support long-term learning, I collaborated with our user researcher to create a design research toolkit. This toolkit, housed on an internal Confluence site called “User Insights”, centralized all research data, from video summaries to customer profiles.
We used tagging to ensure insights were easily retrievable by sprint number, customer, or product feature. Tools like EnjoyHQ and Maze were also onboarded to scale the research efforts across the company.
Research Toolkit - Internal Site
Research (& Design) Output
4
New Revenue Streams
2 OKRs
Directly influenced
12 pts
Increase in CXi Score
What I learned...
One of the biggest takeaways from this experience was the importance of cross-functional collaboration. By bringing together product managers, designers, and business teams, we were able to build a user-centric culture that transformed the platform. I also learned that establishing a strong research foundation is key to driving meaningful innovation. A structured research process not only provides actionable insights but also helps build trust with stakeholders, ensuring that user feedback is central to decision-making. Finally, I realized that vision and strategy must evolve with user needs—continuous research is essential to maintain alignment with shifting market demands.
© Vivekanandhan Vijayachandran. 2025