Heywood Pension Technologies
Heywood Pension Technologies builds modern software solutions for pension schemes, pension administrators and employers to help their members manage their lifelong financial journeys.
To be the UK’s leading provider of workplace pensions solutions, their vision is to transform the Member experience by leveraging the latest digital technologies to provide a data-driven, unique journey for every customer.
User needs met by modern technology
Hand in hand with Heywood, Kainos’ digital services team put end users at the heart of design to define a user-friendly web app that can rapidly scale, improving the pension experience for members. Using our Launchpad approach, a fast, sprint-style framework combining business strategy, user experience and technology, we defined a new product and roadmap of technology-enabled change which was approved by the investment board.
Better information to drive a better pension experience
Since HPTs original self-service launch, design thinking and human-centred technology has become increasingly prevalent. However, the existing offering did not use current design practices or place the end user at the centre of strategy and design. Starting with user-needs, we interviewed users nearing retirement to better understand their frustrations. Our follow-up questions centred around specific pain points in the web app: registration, complex instructions, and an unclear purpose.
Reimagining Retirement using human-centered design
The User Research highlighted Heywood needed to modernise and simplify. Working side-by-side with the Heywood Product team and members nearing retirement, we coached and embedded the 'design thinking' process into the mindset and ways of working of the product and engineering teams.
This involved end-to-end process workshops, design sprints on key features and themes, and design system and UI framework evaluation and creation for the recent re-brand. In parallel, we took a lean UX approach towards conceptual user experience to discover, design, test and iterate hi-fidelity member journey maps and prototypes for key features of the member's area with both internal stakeholders and research participants.
Over the course of eight intensive sprints, this resulted in the successful delivery of a user needs-centred, validated, and modern transformative member's area experience MVP.
Creating a solution built on modern technology
During the design process, Kainos technologists helped HPT in choosing AWS as their strategic Cloud Platform. Building on this, we developed a target state architecture and roadmap based on the adoption of AWS cloud services e.g., cognitive services and modern web development technologies i.e., React.
AWS is committed to keeping its services up and running approximately 99.9% of the time. That means less crashing, glitching and a more stable and seamless user experience. As more people start to use the product, the amount of data, resources and information will naturally expand. AWS customers can automatically scale to meet demand within seconds.
Impact
Kainos helped Heywood establish an iterative and user-centered design and development process whilst testing, designing, and delivering the primary elements of the product. Rolling out the new product will bring unexpected challenges, but thanks to the roadmap, the Heywood senior leadership, and delivery function now have a shared direction, which will benefit pensions administrators, employers, and members—and help Heywood advance its aspirations in pensions services.
Using AWS means Heywood Pensions Technologies can focus on products that differentiate the business, not the infrastructure. It will also result in an increase in agility since the cost and time it takes to experiment and develop is significantly lower.
“In a pension world full of complexity and jargon, Kainos has helped Heywood Pension Technologies bring the user to centre stage, helping us on our mission to deliver a better experience for millions of people as part of their lifelong financial journeys.”
Fraser Smart, CEO, Heywood Pensions Technologies