Brief

Fidelity is one of the world's leading investment specialists, with over $260bn under its management. It was one of the first investment managers to launch a fully-functional website to service its direct investors and advisers more than 10 years ago.

But by 2008, this previously innovative website had left Fidelity with an architecture that was costly to maintain and develop. As a result, the site had evolved as a set of disparate offerings that did not reflect the Fidelity brand. And it's less than optimal user experience was leading to lost revenue opportunities.

Fidelity wanted to regain its status as an online market leader and make its website the channel of choice for customers. Having already carried out a degree of strategic work, they needed to find the right agency to take this forward and create a new architecture and visual expression for a new site. We were selected from a list including many of London's top agencies to lead the information and architecture component of the program. Over four months, we were to co-ordinate a large and disparate group of stakeholders and produce a set of wireframes, site maps and specifications which would allow the development phase of the program to commence.

Strategy/Execution

We defined a detailed information architecture that incorporated radical changes to the site's user experience. These included: 

• A new homepage that removed previous obstacles to finding information
• The creation of a single site experience for both direct investors and advisers
• A sophisticated Search/Browse concept to more readily surface key information
• Future-proofing the architecture to allow content and functionality to be added to or removed from the site quickly and easily

These changes, along with a new visual design for the site, were implemented in late 2008 as part of a first release of a broader web transformation programme.

In addition to our creative and analytic input, our project management expertise was crucial in bringing together a broad range of stakeholders through the design process.

Results

In just under five months, we developed an architecture that will result in a vastly improved user experience for all Fidelity customers. This allowed Fidelity to conduct the first release of its new website on time and paved the way for further improvements in subsequent releases.

Additionally, our approach to the project has resulted in Tobias & Tobias being placed on Fidelity's preferred supplier list – a coveted position that has already resulted in our engagement in further elements of its web transformation programme.