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Nutshell
Project with Studio Rodrigo, 6 months (2020)
Incubated at Discotech, TD Ameritrade's internal program
We helped define, design, and release Nutshell's phase 2 set of features
I was lead Designer in charge of UX, content design, and strategy
Thanks to our collaboration, Nutshell received a green light from their new parent company - Schwab
Screencapture video of the service
Could not have planned it better
Coming back from my maternity leave in July 2020, I was fortunate to be able to work on the best-timed project in my career: a digital product helping parents figure out their parental leave. Led by the awesome Sarah Stormberg, this project was growing at Discotech, TD Ameritrade’s internal incubator. We jumped in to help with phase 2: expanding the capabilities of the service and helping Sarah define the future of the product.
Due to the pandemic, Studio Rodrigo had been working remotely for months. By the time I returned, the team was acclimated to Zooms and Google Meets, chatting all day on Slack and following each other on Figma.
Our team
When I joined the team, the Nutshell project was underway with Ritik Dholakia leading the strategy, Christina No heading our internal project management, and Aldo Juraidini as lead designer. I came in to help lead the team and focus on UX and content design.
Side Note
It was such a pleasure to work closely with Christina and Aldo. Aldo is an amazing visual designer and problem solver. Whenever I would hit a wall, we’d work through the solution together. He would create beautiful comps so quickly that we were able to move faster than our set timeline. Christina is always on top of her game and made our lives immensely easier. In addition to that, they are both just good, kind people, and chatting with them multiple times a day made the Corona isolation a bit easier. ❤
Incubator structure
Studio Rodrigo's long-time friends and neighbors, Shift Lab, were in charge of development. Discotech brought in Bionic to help with project management and user testing.
Since this project was being incubated, it was a very structured process. Every 2 weeks we would test our latest designs through usertesting.com with the help of the lovely Hannah Brener from Bionic. We would then quickly adjust our designs and groom them with the dev team. Our sprints were fast and efficient. Good communication between the different teams was key to ironing out issues.
Upgrade promotion carousel
The product itself
Nutshell had a great concept: the user would fill in a detailed questionnaire and Nutshell would tell them how long their parental leave could be and how much money they could get. The product was already active in NY state and was giving hundreds of users real, helpful, personalized information about their parental leave.
Tip card design. I was able to use my own experience and write content for the service
The Planner
The main value of the product was the “Planner”, where parents-to-be could see ahead of time what their maximized parental leave could be in the form of a timeline or calendar. The team was working on improving this feature when I joined.
Dashboard view
Planner view - timeline
Planner view - calendar
Transforming the long task list into a stepped guide
The second biggest feature was a task list: a long list that was meant to help users with everything they needed to do before they go on leave. I was able to jump in here and improve the experience.
We sat down with Sarah and asked her to explain to us the full process of submitting all the necessary paperwork for the many, many different types of leaves you could file for. Anyone who has done this knows how complex it is. Sarah is an amazing expert and was able to help me fully understand the process.
I always like to say that I need to become an expert so I can explain it to our users. It’s a cliché — but it’s true!
With this information, I was able to turn the long task list into a clear guide with 3 steps:
Dashboard presenting steps from the guide
All 3 steps on the guide page
A detailed task view
Check out the Figma prototypes:
Marketing and onboarding
Next, we worked on streamlining the onboarding process. The goal was to lower the ask of the user by having fewer questions and by making them crystal clear.
We also wanted to revamp the marketing site but did not have any dev scope to spare, so we ended up customizing a simple Squarespace template. It was a joint effort with high rewards!
Screencapture video of the marketing site
The impact
Our work made a huge impact and Nutshell ended up being the only project from the incubator to receive a green light once TD Ameritrade’s merger with Schwab was finalized.
Unfortunately, Schwab decided to close the service in late 2021. Sarah and I both think that this product has a lot of potential and we hope it will one day get a second chance.
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