Act I: Consultants and Thrivent’s first mobile app
Overview
Thrivent is releasing it’s first mobile app. It was all built and design by [name redacted]. I’m the second in-house hire and the consultants are rolling off.
Step 1: Build the Android app to parity with the iOS app.
Step 2: Design stuff from the backlog with the consultants
Step 3: Shelve everything because priorities shift, the consultants are gone, and we’ve got to hire out our team.
Team
2020—July 2021
A lot of [named redacted] people
July 2021—December 2021
4 total designers have joined Thrivent, 1 PM is in place, and the engineers are still offshore.
Turns out most of the experience built for iOS didn’t really have much HIG specific guidelines. Navigation and a few native selector components, otherwise, it was a straight forward lift and shift
Moving more into feature creation
1Bill Pay
[Name redacted] still had time on their contract with us, so one contract PM stayed on for a bit along with a business analyst and one other designer.
Bill pay was next on the docket to be shipped, but they still needed designs.
Sadly, for the user, these requirements were hyper specific and created at a time where business stakeholders drove design requirements.I got the ball rolling, but eventually rolled off this work and helped onboard our two recently hired in-house designers to take on the work.
A requirements doc like this is not user-centered... but
I’ll work with it if I have to get the job done.Injecting some pov of a user.Specific use-case designs
2
Donor Advised Funds
Donor advised funds are investment accounts that are tax-advantaged and used for charity. Think of them as setting up an account as a foundation for giving, but it invests into the market.
Requirements on this were a little more open, unlike bill pay. We also had an in-house PM start to take on the work and I was finally looped in early in the process.
It was still stakeholder-driven, but atleast design had a seat at the table earlier in the project.
The project was shelved, unfortunately.
Fitting it within the context of the mobile appBreadth of explorationStakeholder session led by our PM and co-ran by meMore problem framingWhat’s the current precedent?In the weeds
3Choice Dollar Search
The previous project was shelved in favor of prioritizing choice dollar search. While finding insights directly from users was scant, we were able to pull out some insights from the stakeholders on this.
Choice dollars is a key differientiator for Thrivent. It’s a program that allows Thrivent clients to direct money to different charitable causes.The mobile app had the functionality for clients to direct money, but no easy way to search within the app for which organizations they could direct to.
We went through a re-org, priorities got shifted, and then this project got shelved...
Read Act II: Tiger team & Newtown