Brendan Appe

Edward Jones

Beyond Numbers

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Overview

In 2019 the financial advisory industry was facing new regulatory challenges, including the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest and other federal and state regulations that required broker-dealers to act in their clients' best interests. Edward Jones recognized the need to go beyond compliance, proactively enhancing the client experience and improving internal workflows.

My Team

01x IBM Distinguished Designer
06x Senior UX Designers (me)
03x Experience Strategists
+ A boatload of Edward Jone team members

My Role

User Research & Insights
Experience Design & Iteration
Cross-functional Collaboration
Design System

Our Impact

60+ interviews leading to 9 personas and user value impact assessment
100+ hours of co-creation with FA and BOA sponsor users
35 prioritized capability categories covering 116 unique capabilities
18 projects kicked off aligned with a user-centered transformation strategy

The Problem

In response to evolving federal and state regulations, including the SEC’s Regulation Best Interest, Edward Jones sought to redefine how financial advisors deliver goals-based financial advice.
To achieve this, the firm brought together stakeholders from across the organization, including home office associates, branch teams, and sponsor users. The engagement focused on three core experiences:

Goal Discovery
Account Opening
Portfolio Management

These areas represent the full lifecycle of almost every Edward Jones client, making it imperative to design an integrated and user-centric approach.

Historically, these processes were fragmented, with financial advisors and branch office administrators navigating multiple systems, manually compiling client information, and struggling to provide clear, consistent, and personalized financial guidance. Clients, in turn, faced challenges in understanding the "why" behind financial decisions, lacked transparency into past and future actions, and experienced inefficiencies in account setup and portfolio execution.

The beautiful Edward Jones campus in St. Louis served as our team’s home for nearly half the year.

Through Enterprise Design Thinking and an Accelerated Visioning approach, three project teams worked in parallel, eventually converging into a unified future state vision. This vision eliminated inefficiencies, embedded intelligence into workflows, and provided interactive tools that guided both clients and financial advisors through financial planning decisions.

My Role
As a Senior UX Designer on the Portfolio Management team, my focus was on researching and optimizing workflows within this specific domain.
Beyond my work on portfolio management, I also played a key leadership role in the development of the Edward Jones Design System. This system established UI and UX standards across the entire program, ensuring consistency and scalability for all digital experiences. It provided a unified framework for interaction patterns, visual design, and accessibility, allowing teams across different domains to build cohesive and intuitive products.