A unified navigation for a complex platform
I led the end-to-end redesign of the primary navigation at Wealth.com, unifying two separate navigation systems into a single, intuitive structure organized around how financial advisors actually think and work. The result was a dramatically simplified platform experience that reduced the learning curve for new users.
Wealth.com is a financial planning platform used by advisors to manage estates, trusts, and tax strategies for high-net-worth clients.
THE WORK
THE STORY
Two navigations, one confused user
The platform had evolved over time into a disjointed experience with two separate navigation systems—a vertical primary nav and a horizontal product nav—that operated independently. Users frequently told us the platform was difficult to learn, and getting from one product to another felt unintuitive. Financial advisors struggled to understand the relationship between tools and couldn't easily move through their workflow without stopping to figure out where things lived.
Rethinking the information architecture
I started by mapping the existing product landscape and exploring how financial advisors think about their workflow. Early concepts focused on grouping products by advisor intent—how they naturally move from one task to the next when reviewing a client—rather than by the technical categories the platform had inherited over time.
Rapidly prototyping with AI to move faster
We went through several rounds of iteration, leveraging AI tools to quickly generate and visualize navigation concepts at a pace we hadn't achieved before. What previously would have taken weeks of design exploration was compressed into days, allowing us to put more ideas in front of stakeholders and converge on the strongest direction sooner.
We built interactive prototypes of our top navigation concepts and tested them directly with financial advisors. These sessions revealed how advisors mentally organize their workflow and where they expected to find specific tools. The feedback was invaluable—it challenged some of our assumptions and validated others—ultimately guiding us toward a navigation structure that matched the advisor's mental model.
One navigation, organized around the advisor's workflow
The final design unified the two navigation systems into a single, cohesive structure that organizes products around how advisors naturally think about their work. Instead of forcing users to learn the platform's internal logic, the navigation now guides them from one product to the next in a way that mirrors their client review process—making the platform feel intuitive from day one.
A project of firsts
This project marked several firsts for the company. It was the first major design initiative where we leaned on AI tools to rapidly prototype concepts and test them with users, compressing what previously took weeks into days. It was also the company's first fundamental redesign of not just how the platform looks, but how users interact with it. We've since received incredibly positive feedback, but it required deep collaboration and many rounds of iteration to make sure we got it right.
