Case study
Overview
Context
My brother, a financial advisor, needed an effecient way to acquire clients. My other brother and I built him a website and brand to streamline his business.
Goal
Enable scalable client acquisition through:
My roles
Product designer
Frontend developer
Backend developer
Tools
Frontend
Backend
Timeline
Duration: 14 months
Research insights
Problem
Our brother had to call cold leads individually to pitch them the service and book a meeting.
Solution
Replace manual outreach with targeted marketing and an automated booking flow.
Evolution
First MVP
Our initial goal was to launch quickly with a minimal website that explained the service.
The MVP focused on visual appeal — sleek layouts, animations, and a modern feel — but offered limited clarity and weak performance.
Learning from feedback
Early user feedback revealed poor UX and mobile load times exceeding 9 seconds due to heavy visuals and platform limitations.
Redesign decisions
We took this opportunity to redesign the website entirely.
Design system
To enable faster iterations and ensure consistency across the product, I built a modular design system during the redesign.
Buttons & tags
Border radius
10 px - small frames
20 px - large frames
Design iterations
I explore multiple design solutions for each component, evaluating trade-offs between clarity, usability, and visual hierarchy.
These cards help users determine which financial plan suits their goals and their situation.
Maximum information density. It includes all available plan details.
Focused on decision-relevant information only.
This version better serves the user's goal:
Reduces cognitive load by showing only information that matter for decision making
Improves scannability, especially on mobile
Results & impact
The redesigned website delivered measurable improvements:
Reduced mobile load time from 9+ seconds to under 2 seconds
Replaced hour-long qualification calls with a 2-minute interactive questionnaire
Created a scalable design system that enabled rapid iteration
However, it ultimately did not achieve its primary goal of streamlining client acquisition.
Through this project, we realized that selling financial planning services requires a deep level of trust and credibility, something a new brand cannot easily build through product design alone — though definitely possible. Combined with the stringent regulatory environment and highly concentrated competitive landscape of financial services in Belgium — the business would have required substantial long-term time and capital investment, far beyond the scope of this project.
As a result, we made the strategic decision to discontinue the project and focus on other opportunities where design could have a more direct and immediate impact.
Reflection
This project taught me the importance of designing with the broader context in mind. Great design solves user problems, but it can't fix fundamental business constraints.
Knowing when to stop iterating — and recognizing which problems exist outside the product layer — was one of the most valuable lessons I took away from this experience.
