Automating portfolio management for everyday investors
Designing a suite of tools to monitor markets, identify patterns, optimize asset allocation, and rebalance portfolios in real-time.
Company
Athena Advisory
Timeline
June-September 2024
Role
Lead and solo designer: UX strategy & roadmapping, IA, interaction design, prototyping, data viz/dashboards
Overview
Athena Advisory builds AI-powered tools that help wealth managers deliver personalized investing experiences at scale.
I led the end-to-end design of our suite of investing tools.
The Problem
The Challenge
For most people, investing isn’t a question of interest—it’s one of access. High costs, jargon-heavy experiences, and human-advisor bottlenecks have kept millions from getting personalized advice. We saw an opportunity to redesign what “financial guidance” could look like for the everyday investor.
I led the end-to-end design of Athena’s investing experience—an AI-assisted platform that brings personalized portfolio insights, real-time recommendations, and actionable next steps to everyday investors. The challenge was balancing trust and automation: creating an experience that felt as credible as a human advisor, but as intuitive as a modern consumer app.
The Solution
Athena’s investing platform was built to make professional-grade financial advice accessible to everyone. It uses AI to translate complex investment data into simple, personalized guidance, helping users understand where they stand, what’s working, and what to improve—all within a compliance-ready, advisor-integrated ecosystem.
The result: users can see where they stand, understand their portfolios, and take the next step toward professional management—all from one interface.
Research & Strategy
After a two-week research sprint, I led a workshop with key internal and customer stakeholders to align on scope and approach. We settled on a two-pronged approach to first surface value, then convert users:
Designing the Dashboard
Each dashboard module was directly designed to answer one of four primary questions.
“Where is my money?” -> Account breakdown
“What should I look at now?” → Top Movers/Top Holdings cards
“How am I doing?” → Performance chart
“What am I invested in?” → Allocation chart
I initially designed a full holdings table, but testing revealed that users found the full table format overwhelming because they only scanned for top performers. To solve for this behavior, I replaced the full table with Insight Cards. These quick, glanceable cards surfaced the performance insights users actually act on, and an option to 'view all' to see the full holdings table.
Designing the Health Check
I initially designed a composite "portfolio score". Testing revealed that the composite score hid nuance because investors think in terms of accounts, like 401(k) vs IRA vs brokerage. Given this, I switched the analysis from portfolio-level to account-level. This better mirrored users' mental model and makes the “why switch to manage” sell more precise per account.
I partnered with backend engineers to identify three health dimensions to monitor: risk, diversification, and fees. After numerous explorations, I finalized a distinct comparison visual for each one.
Finding the Conversion Sweet Spot
Early tests showed three dead ends:
Full paywall: gating benefits behind signup introduced too much friction
DIY checklist: a lengthy to-do list gave users homework we couldn’t track, so impact went unmeasured
Direct upsell: a “trust us” upgrade prompt, with no proof, felt like an empty sales pitch
Our solution: surface personalized optimization tips inline then offer to let Athena handle it for them and switch with a single-click. Evidence first, ask second.
Early research revealed users wouldn’t upgrade without a concrete, personal “why.”
To answer the question, “What do I gain from a managed plan?” I introduced Managed-Account Benefit Cards. Each card quantifies one advantage of our managed service. Instead of using generic numbers, we calibrated the exact value using each user’s data. This made a personalized, data-driven case for switching to a managed account.
