Banking · USA

Wells Fargo CDO & CLO portals · Portal Direct v1.0

Portal Direct is an internal responsive web application for a close-knit group of investors, collateral managers, relationship managers, financial managers, analysts and accountants who invest in, manage and monitor CDOs and CLOs.

Portal Direct v1.0 UI mockup of the transactions page for a CDO deal
Client
Wells Fargo, USA (Banking)
Project
Portal Direct v1.0
Role
UX & UI Architect
Period
Aug 2016 – Sep 2017
Team
15+
Location
Columbia, MD, USA
Tools
UX research, UX audit, data analysis, IA, Design Thinking, wireframes & prototypes, Sketch, InVision, Zeplin, HTML5 & CSS3, Bootstrap, Material UI, Angular CLI
Client site
Visit live site ↗The current version may differ from my work.

The challenge

The portal had to streamline the whole process, from setting up a deal to managing, monitoring and reporting, with reports specific to each user and a transparent end-to-end workflow.

Very different roles needed different permissions and views on the same complex financial data.

What I did

  • Wireframes, mockups and prototypes (Balsamiq, MS-Visio, Photoshop, Sketch, InVision)
  • Workflows and task flows presented to stakeholders, with feedback implemented (InVision, Zeplin)
  • Admin dashboard, manage users and manage roles specifications
  • UI mockups for deal assets and transactions
  • Front-end development (HTML5, CSS3, Bootstrap, jQuery, Angular grids), code sharing via Git, team management in Agile JIRA
  • WAI-ARIA accessibility enhancements

Approach

01 Plan with sales and tech

Was part of the sales, technical and project planning team, estimating high-level UX and UI timelines.

02 Understand the business

Analysed requirements, researched similar apps in the market and built the information architecture.

03 Specify precisely

Produced wireframes with interface specifications and a versioned wireframe specification document.

04 Build and lead

Developed front-end UIs, ran cross-browser and cross-device testing, managed onshore and offshore UI teams and reported to the VP of Technology.

Key design decisions

Decision 01 — Roles as a matrix

Manage Roles shows every role against every permission in one grid, so admins can audit access at a glance.

Decision 02 — Deal pages as tabs

Each deal opens into Overview, Assets, Liabilities, Tests, Ratings, Accounts and Transactions tabs, mirroring how analysts work through a deal.

Decision 03 — Specs next to the wireframe

Every wireframe carries its interface specification in the margin, so offshore developers build exactly what was agreed.

Early sketches

Before the wireframes: paper sketches and annotated reviews from 2016.

Early sketches and annotated reviews, 2016

Wireframes

The admin screens as wireframes, then annotated with their interface specifications.

Admin dashboard wireframe with interface specs
Manage users wireframe
Annotated: the admin dashboard, specs in the margin
Annotated: user management, specs in the margin

UI mockups

A deal, opened into its tabs.

Deal assets: the Assets tab of a CDO deal
Transactions for a CDO deal

Outcome

Wireframes were finalised and approved for further development, and the specification document tracked every change version by version for the build team.