Case study · Principal Financial Group
Designing business tools for Principal Financial
Lead product designer on Principal's SBO Advisory platform: web and mobile tools that help financial advisors guide small business owners through retirement, succession and wealth planning.
01
Client Overview and the SBO Advisory suite
I led product design on SBO Advisory, a suite of web and mobile tools for two audiences: financial advisors guiding small business owners, and the owners themselves, tracking their own readiness for retirement, succession and growth.
02
One view of the whole client
Advisors had no single view of the full client picture. Business valuation, personal wealth, insurance gaps, compliance flags, succession status and tax strategy sat in separate tools. Before every meeting, advisors pieced the data together by hand, often for the biggest financial decision of the owner's life.
The hardest problem was density
Advisors wanted everything visible at once, but each client's data model was enormous. I settled on a card-based layout with a persistent Details nav. The top row gives a fast read of the situation, and advisors can drill into any area without leaving the page.
The advisor dashboard
Client Overview
Try it: use the Details nav to jump between areas, hover the charts for each month, filter compliance flags by severity, and sort holdings.
Client Overview
Client
Accounting · Est. 2021
Berg & Associates
PartnershipMark Johnson Owner
- Revenue
- $3.2M
- Employees
- 22
- Valuation
- $4.8M
- Share of NW
- 45%
- Cash
- $520K
- Debt
- None
- Cash runway
- 2.3 mo
- Succession
- Underway
Insurance coverage
Gap flagged: umbrella limit below recommended for revenue.
Personal finances
Personal AUM
$5,890,000
MTD return
+0.4%
+4.7%
YTD return
- Net worth
- $10.7M
- Cash
- 12.4%
- Risk
- Conservative
- Goal
- 95%
YTD returns
+5 more than 2021
Total monthly returns
Thousands of dollars
Compliance & risk
| Severity | Type | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Alert | Concentration | Tech 52%, above the 35% limit |
| Warning | Retirement | No retirement plan, sole proprietor |
| Alert | Cash reserve | Business cash under 1 month of operating costs |
| Info | Succession | No succession plan on a $2.8M valuation |
| Alert | Insurance gap | Umbrella limit below recommended |
| Warning | Review | Quarterly review 5 days overdue |
Top holdings
| VTI | 32% | +2.1% |
| VXUS | 18% | −0.8% |
| BND | 15% | +0.3% |
| AAPL | 12% | +4.5% |
| MSFT | 10% | +3.2% |
| SCHD | 8% | +1.7% |
03
UX research
Watching advisors prepare for real meetings
- Method
- Contextual inquiry
- Participants
- 6 advisors
- Sessions
- 60 minutes
- Setting
- Remote observation
Each session followed an advisor preparing for a real client meeting: which tools they opened, what data they looked for, how they flagged risks, and what they wished they had. This round added hands-on behavioral data to earlier McKinsey-led strategic research (a survey of 200+ and stakeholder interviews) to inform interface decisions.
Participants
| ID | Role | Experience | Active clients | Segment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P01 | Regional Advisor | 9 yrs | 45 | Mid-market |
| P02 | Senior Advisor | 17 yrs | 62 | Enterprise |
| P03 | Senior Advisor | 14 yrs | 38 | Mid-market |
| P04 | Advisor | 4 yrs | 22 | Emerging |
| P05 | Lead Advisor | 20 yrs | 71 | Enterprise |
| P06 | Advisor | 6 yrs | 30 | Mid-market |
Affinity mapping
68 observations from 6 sessions, coded into 5 themes.
- Data fragmentation23 34%
- Compliance anxiety16 24%
- Meeting prep burden12 18%
- Client emotional state9 13%
- Mobile limitations8 11%
Key findings
F1Critical
Advisors lack a unified client view, so they aggregate data by hand before every meeting.
6 of 6 participants
F2Critical
Compliance flags surface reactively, often during or after the client meeting.
5 of 6 participants
F3High
Cash runway and succession readiness are top of mind, yet the hardest to find in current tools.
5 of 6 participants
F4High
Mobile is used for pre-meeting prep and post-meeting notes, not full portfolio review.
4 of 6 participants
Next steps
- In progressTurn F1 and F2 into dashboard wireframes for Client Overview
- PlannedDesign mobile pre-meeting and post-meeting flows, per F4
- PlannedValidate milestone-based framing with 4–6 business owners
- BacklogAlign notification thresholds with compliance team requirements
04
Preliminary design system
A strict monochrome foundation
A minimal structural guide for the core visual language: strict monochrome hierarchy, a precise type scale and consistent spatial rules, so dense financial data stays calm and legible.
Color
Primary & text
Black
#000000Surface & background
White
#FFFFFFGrey 50 · app background
#F5F5F5UI elements & borders
Grey 100 · lines
#E5E5E5Grey 400 · muted
#A3A3A3Grey 600 · subtext
#525252Type scale
Heading XL
36 / 40 · Bold
Client Overview
Heading L
24 / 32 · Semibold
Succession readiness
Heading M
18 / 24 · Medium
Compliance & risk, six open flags
Body
14 / 20 · Regular
Business valuation, personal wealth, insurance gaps and tax strategy, together in one view so advisors can prepare in minutes.
Body small
12 / 16 · Regular
Metadata, captions and secondary labels.
Radius and spacing
Every card, button, input and structural container uses a strict 6px corner radius.
Applied example card
Demonstrating radius and spacing
Primary action