Charles Schwab
UX & UI Design, Art Direction, Video Production
Charles Schwab: International Portal
The Charles Schwab International website enables investors outside the United States to initiate a relationship with Charles Schwab. Essentially the experience is meant to educate potential international investors about Schwab’s offering inspiring a phone contact to open an account. The redesign was requested in order to improve session duration, page views and most importantly conversions.
Solution
Working with a small team we were able to use the data available to us to optimize the experience. Each page was scrutinized. UX, UI, visual design and copy were updated and redesigned as needed, all while working within the existing stylesheet.
Process
Improving new client acquisition while staying on brand required rethinking content, prioritization, design and clarity among other things.
Remaining integrated with the schwab.com design system, I offered up a couple options using design elements and interactions to support the primary interactions, “Open an account” and “Ask us a question” in different ways. The first focused on empowering the experienced investor to be in the drivers seat. The second emphasized Schwab’s expertise in helping navigate the U.S. market.
Ingenuity
One of the issues we were trying to solve was how to make the page feel less stale without requiring resources to continually update it. By adding a live stock ticker to the bottom of the page we not only made a tangible connection to the U.S. market, we added a constant update of relevant content requiring very little resources after the initial development work.
CSIM 25th Anniversary Video
This video is celebrating Charles Schwab Investment Management’s (CSIM) 25th anniversary, telling the story of the history and mission of the product.
There were two phases to this project. The first phase was to produce a video to be featured at the 25th anniversary event. The second phase would be to produce an updated video incorporating footage shot at the event featuring a bell ringing ceremony hosted by Charles Schwab himself.
Solution
Working as a traditional art director / copywriter team, we designed and developed a concept, script, and storyboards. I then produced a heavily branded 30 second animated video to present a timeline view of the successes of CSIM over its 25 year lifespan.
Because of strict brand requirements, we had a limited color palette and graphic options. We made a decision to talk about milestones. The story the motion tells would be framed by a series of Schwab’s signature brand element, the blue square. I illustrated a narrative built from the squares and animated them in a way that emphasized big moments while always moving forward and upward.
On the day of the event, I was tasked with directing the film crew to be sure we could capture the gravity of the moment including crowd capture and multiple camera angles of the bell ringing ceremony.
