Asset management
6 months
Supercharging the investor web experience across global markets
Overview
AXA Investment Managers needed to modernise and streamline their global investor web experience. With 18 markets and a diverse range of investor profiles, the challenge was to simplify complexity—aligning business goals, user needs, and technical feasibility.
Through landscape audits, data analysis, and rapid prototyping, we redefined the platform with a simplified site structure, a refreshed brand experience, and a clear, global content strategy. The new design system and operating model empowered teams to engage users more effectively, capture valuable data, and promote key business priorities. By restructuring workflows, we enabled automation, reduced risk, and provided a scalable framework for content distribution and performance measurement.
Main activities
- Landscape audit and benchmarking
- Data analytics
- Business goal setting
- Stakeholder alignment
- Technical feasibility study
- Compliance validation
- Insights synthesis and opportunity analysis
- Vision definition
- Rapid prototyping
- Product management
- User testing
- UI library setup and management
- Design quality assurance
Challenges
The AXA IM global web experience and platform was outdated, the site structure was difficult to navigate and difficult to manage. Our biggest challenge was simplification; to align and consolidate the goals of 18 markets and the needs of a range of investor profiles.
Approach
Conducted a competitor and wider landscape audit
We conducted an extensive audit both within and outside the sector around specific themes to identify best practice, new ideas and benchmarks in order to define a sector leading user experience.
Aligned goals and how we will measure them
We interviewed and aligned senior stakeholders from across the organisation on the vision, business goals and the user needs. This foundation enabled us to define the strategy, priority goals and the core user journeys to deliver a meaningful user experience.
Set up a highly collaborative, global working group
We set up a working group with key stakeholders from across the business that would meet regularly to share and communicate often in order to solve problems early and maintain the project momentum.
Distilled the common needs across the investor personas
We defined a set of nine different personas, each with their own set of needs and pain points. Using the jobs-to-be-done framework, we consolidated the needs of all the target audience into a map of core user journeys that could help us design.
Vision, validation & roadmap planning
We quickly established a vision for the end experience to align goals, validate ideas, and gain early buy-in. Once the user experience was defined, we collaborated to refine technical requirements, assess feasibility, and prioritise a realistic roadmap for delivery.
Agile execution & scalable rollout
Through an agile approach, we developed a new brand tone of voice, created and refined content, and aligned dependencies across design, content, and compliance to ensure timely delivery. Partnering with market experts, we defined a minimum viable experience for launch and mapped out a strategic path for future feature enhancements and a global rollout.
Solutions
Aligned business goals and how to measure them
We interviewed and aligned senior stakeholders from across the organisation on the vision, challenges, business goals and the user needs. This foundation enabled us to define a measurable strategy that would have a positive impact on the business.
Open site concept reduced the bounce rate and created a frictionless user experience
Utilising behavioural data we were able to remove three considerable points of friction to the website.
The new open site concept would dramatically improve how users engage with the website.
Modular design system and versatile set of templates
The website needed to work really hard in a multitude of circumstances whilst reducing the amount of technical debt it would take to maintain it. A modular approach to how the website was built would allow us to piece together a range of templates.
Fresh look and tone of voice
We defined a design language and tone of voice that was unique to AXA IM and familiar to the parent brand.
The tone of voice set out examples of how it could flex in a number of different scenarios from social media to corporate brochures.
An editorial experience to engage their audience
From events, to macroeconomic research to articles on self driving cars, AXA IM produces some world-class content from experts across their business. We designed an editorial platform to distribute content seamlessly to the users and capture data if the user wanted to subscribe.
Summary
The redesigned AXA IM fund experience delivers intuitive, accessible information across all touchpoints, improving user engagement and exceeding industry benchmarks. By streamlining operations and enhancing fund promotion, we made fund data easier to access and understand, resulting in a 50% increase in document downloads and stronger user engagement.
With Pattrn, we have delivered an entirely new, industry-leading web experience. We streamlined core user journeys, refreshed our design system and reduced operational complexity. Pattrn are creative problem solvers and I can always rely on our partnership.
Brian Stewart Global Head of Customer Insight & Digital Experience, AXA IM Project impact (anticipated)
Reduced drop off rate by 68% with our ‘open site’ concept
By implementing the ‘open site’ concept, we increased visitor engagement, driving a 122% boost in site entry and significantly improving user retention.
Streamlined 18 diverse market needs into a unified strategy
We unified the diverse needs of 18 markets and investor personas into a cohesive strategy with measurable goals.
Crafted a unified brand voice aligned with the business
We developed a new design language and tone for AXA IM, balancing uniqueness and brand alignment across touchpoints.