- JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank has plans to grow its user experience team by over 20% to roughly 160 by the end of 2020. In 2016, the group consisted of just 20 people.
- Debra Herschmann, who leads JPMorgan CIB’s user experience efforts, told Business Insider the bank’s efforts stem in part from younger, tech-savvy employees wanting better design in the tools and platforms they use at work.
- Herschmann outlined the makeup of her team, and the goals the bank has set for 2020 when it comes to its work in the UX space.
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You could build the fastest racecar in the world, but if the gas and brake pedals aren’t near each other, its top speed won’t matter.
The same thinking applies to building technology on Wall Street. How fast a tool can execute a trade or analyze risk is pointless if it is designed in a way that makes it difficult to use.
And with the billions of dollars banks are pouring into their tech these days, the stakes have never been higher.
But getting designers involved in tech projects isn’t always an easy pitch. Technologists can be protective of their work.
Debra Herschmann has been fighting that battle her entire career. As a result, Herschmann, who serves as head of user experience of JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank, has a quick response for those who push back against letting her team get involved early on.
“When people say ‘I don’t have enough time to think about design or to incorporate design in the process,’ I remind them that it’s really expensive to build the wrong thing,” Herschmann told Business Insider. “Design is a way to thoughtfully craft exceptional client experience, while de-risking delivery.”
Herschmann is no stranger to designing tools for Wall Street. After stints at Citibank, Lehman Brothers, and Goldman Sachs, Herschmann joined JPMorgan at the end of 2016.
At the time, the bank only had a team of approximately 20 people focused on user experience. However, during the interview process Herschmann said she got the sense leadership believed in the value user experience could bring to the bank, which spent over $11 billion on tech in 2019.
Three years later Herschmann’s group has grown to 130, with plans from JPMorgan to continue to put more resources towards it. The bank is looking to add 20-30 more roles in 2020.
The rise of fintechs has led to a closer eye on UX
It should come as no surprise Wall Street has turned its attention to user experience. The importance of design has been a selling point for the startups that have increasingly cut into legacy players’ market share on the retail side of their business.
Fintechs like Robinhood and Wealthfront have made a name for themselves, and attracted younger generations, thanks to a slick, flashy user interface.
It goes beyond just fintechs, though. User experience has become a critical piece of nearly every app people use in their day-to-day lives, from Instagram to Uber.
As a result, peoples’ expectations of how tools and platforms at work should look and feel has risen considerably, Herschmann said.
“Digital natives are used to having amazing products and services at their fingertips,” Herschmann said. “They expect the same quality of experience and delight in the products they need to get their jobs done.”
To be clear, user experience isn’t just about good-looking apps and nice color schemes. What Herschmann describes as user interface — things like screen design, how the content is structured, whether something is clickable or not — all do play a part.
But there is also the actual user’s experience. Herschmann describes it as understanding the problem the app or tool is looking solve and and working to accomplish that.
Finally, there is consideration of the service experience, something that is fairly new to the bank. At it’s core, it’s about making sure the entire journey is consistent.
Herschmann draws an example from Apple, pointing to the consistency someone would get from purchasing a product online to bringing it into a store for a repair.
“Trying to change our thought process from being product oriented to being service oriented,” Herschmann said. “And examining how we deliver end-to-end journeys that are seamless and satisfying.”
UX teams require a unique mix of talents
Such a wide remit requires a diverse set of skills. Herschmann’s group is made up of everything from designers developing what is actually seen on screen to researchers working to better understand the end user of the product and what they are looking for.
There are also hybrids, who Herschmann describes as “creative technologists”, that sit between being an engineer and designer.
“Talented individuals who can design and code — who can go from identifying user needs to designing and then developing a solution — are unicorns,” Herschmann said. “This blend of skills in one person is exceptionally powerful — and exceptionally hard to find.”
Going forward, Herschmann said the focus will be to back up all the work her team is doing with data to justify it’s making a difference.
Currently, the team has anecdotal evidence of that, but Herschmann said she is pushing for more quantifiable figures.
“We are becoming increasingly data driven in our product design, measuring how people are embracing our technology, how productive and engaged they are,” Herschmann said. “We are improving our ability to learn from the metrics we capture, to enhance the current experience and define future products.”
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