Context
A major UK pensions and investments provider needed a scalable way to introduce complementary products, services and useful content within its authenticated customer dashboards. The project created a responsive content and recommendation system, supported by clear rules for targeting, placement and customer dismissal.
Customer research validated the proposition, the organisation approved the feature, and the resulting experience progressed through development to customer release.
The challenge
The organisation’s authenticated dashboards supported essential pension and investment tasks but lacked a consistent, scalable way to introduce relevant complementary products, services and guidance. New content needed to attract attention without competing with account information or eroding trust. It also had to work across products, customer contexts and screen sizes while giving product, marketing, design and engineering teams a common set of rules.
Approach
The work began with an analysis of the existing dashboard architecture and a review of how other financial organisations incorporated promotional content into authenticated experiences. This established a clear distinction between interactive recommendations, intended to support product discovery and cross-sell, and informative content designed to provide guidance.
A practical personalisation model connected a prepared buffer of eligible messages with customer, product and calendar events. Customer financial contexts were then mapped to three dashboard themes, varying the volume and placement of recommendations without changing the underlying product experience. The concepts were developed as responsive, reusable components within the organisation’s design system and validated across desktop and mobile treatments.
Solution
The resulting system combined reusable interface components with an operating model for content selection. Interactive and informative tiles could support different sizes, imagery, icons and calls to action while following consistent structural rules.
Recommendations could be fixed or dismissible. A dismissal signalled that the message was not currently relevant, allowing another eligible recommendation to be selected for a future visit. The system gave teams a shared foundation for delivering more relevant content while preserving the clarity and trust expected of a financial dashboard.
