Scottish Widows

The concept for the app was to keep the user informed and engaged with their pension. It would offer breakdowns on how much went in a month, and from what sources, the user would be able to monitor the growth of their investment, read about the funds they’d chosen and be kept up to date with any relevant information and news from Widows.

With the arrival of Open Banking, the idea was that they’d be able to add in other pensions or savings accounts they might have, turning the app into a central ‘savings hub’ for the user.

Finally, the app was to be a vehicle for a wider Widows campaign, Future You.

Future You was essentially a campaign to get people to think about their futures and plan better for their retirement, in the app it was to manifest as a system that would ask the user various questions about their finances and lifestyle, in order to give them predictions of what sort of pension they were on track for, and any action they needed to take to achieve one that was in line with their answers.

There were various concepts for how to deliver this, including a pseudo chatbot interface.

In addition to the design work on the app, I was involved in efforts to update the Widows brand and wider approach to apps within LBG. I had a number of meetings with the head of Widows brand to pitch updated colour palettes that better met accessibility guidelines, as well as having to explain the introduction of native components; calls to action, dropdowns, date pickers etc that would use the device (iOS or Android) standards rather than custom, branded components.

The app was the first to be built on a new, group wide, native app platform, so ideas and patterns established were likely to become candidates for use in other Lloyds brands.