A 5-day design sprint to reimagine how Canadian retirees manage, understand, and feel confident about their retirement finances — from multi-account consolidation to AI-powered scenario planning.
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
5 business days
Platform
Desktop web, Mobile
Skills
UX Research, System Design, AI-assisted workflow, Fintech
Retirement finances in Canada are fragmented — multiple institutions, multiple account types, overlapping tax rules, and no single platform that brings it all together clearly.
"I have accounts at RBC, TD, and BMO. My pension comes from one place, my RRIF from another. Every month I'm logging into three different apps, doing math on a notepad, and hoping I haven't triggered some tax thing I don't understand."
Robert K., 67 — retired engineer, Oakville ON
Composite persona built from user research
Before touching a single wireframe, I documented the real breakdowns happening in pension management today:
Research location
Mississauga Library
Research method: Structured interviews and surveys conducted at Mississauga Library with retirees and pre-retirees, supplemented by domain research and competitive analysis.
I ran a structured research sprint covering domain knowledge, competitive analysis, and a user survey designed specifically for retirees and pre-retirees.
I used ChatGPT to accelerate domain knowledge — understanding the mechanics of RRSP, TFSA, RRIF, LIF, CPP, OAS, and how they interact at the tax level. This gave me a solid foundation to design with accuracy, not assumptions.
The survey results sharpened the pre thoughts — this user group wants clarity above everything else.
67%
of Canadian retirees manage 3+ separate accounts across institutions
42%
lack any formal withdrawal strategy — they're improvising month to month
#1
thing users look at when reviewing retirement finances: Total portfolio value
3+
Institutions hold accounts for the majority of respondents — cross-institution aggregation is the core value proposition
I built four personas that capture the real spectrum of Canadian retirees. Designing for all four meant the platform had to be layered — simple on the surface, powerful underneath.
Alberta
Planning to retire · Middle class · Financially aware
"I want to leave something behind."
Berlin
Planning early retirement · Lifestyle focused · No dependents
"I worked hard. I want to actually enjoy it."
Caroline
Retired 10 years · Not wealthy · Finance-avoidant
"I just don't want to run out."
Dumplin
Ultra-wealthy · Very high financial literacy · Uses advisors but verifies everything
"Don't simplify it. Show me the real numbers."
I audited existing Canadian pension and retirement platforms to understand the gap. The pattern was consistent: platforms either showed too much (overwhelming data tables, no context) or too little (vague "you're on track" messages with nothing underneath). No one was doing the middle well — data-rich but emotionally calm. That became the design north star for BAM.
I scoped the MVP around four features that would deliver the most user value: account consolidation, cashflow visibility, retirement plan strategy, and a strategy simulator. Here's how I thought through each one.
The setup flow had to do something hard: ask retirees for deeply personal financial information while making them feel safe.
I designed a five-step progressive disclosure: Personal info → Link accounts → Income → Assets → Expenses. Each step is isolated, calm, and clearly numbered so users always know where they are.
The login page includes a "CDIC regulated" badge — a small but deliberate trust signal for a nervous audience.
Account linking surfaces bank logos immediately — TD, RBC, BAM — so users can see their familiar institutions without hunting. CPP and OAS inputs are separated into their own sub-steps with clear yes/no gates, since not all users have both.
The home screen opens with a clear headline: total available balance, estimated monthly income, and projected estate balance. Three numbers. That's the whole story for most users. Everything else — asset allocation, recent activity, portfolio projection — lives below for those who want to go deeper.
The dashboard greets the persona by name and leads with a plain-English confidence statement: "Your portfolio is projected to support your income needs through age 92 with 93% confidence." Below that, investment accounts are grouped by type with per-account performance deltas, and recent activity is surfaced on the right — familiar patterns borrowed from banking apps users already trust.
Cashflow is broken into four tabs: Income, Investment, Expenses, and Taxes. Each follows an identical pattern — projected monthly at the top, annual breakdown table in the middle, bar chart at the bottom — so users only need to learn the layout once.
The expense tab surfaces a +25% warning badge when projected spending exceeds estimates.
The CPP & OAS Optimization prompt lives inside the Income tab — contextually surfaced right where users are already thinking about that question, rather than buried in a settings menu.
After onboarding, users arrive at a plan selection screen. I designed three options: Traditional Plan (simple, balanced), Goal-Based Planning (three sub-paths: Prioritize Savings, Max Spending, Set Your Own Goal), and Custom Plan. The language is deliberately non-expert — describing what each plan does in terms of outcomes, not mechanics.
The Traditional plan is a clear entry point. Goal-Based gives users agency without overwhelming them. Custom sits apart for power users. Each option expands into a detail view showing the deposit and withdrawal order logic — with draggable account tiles so advisors (or confident users) can reorder to suit their strategy.
The Custom plan exposes a year-by-year grid where each account's deposit and withdrawal priority can be set independently, with color-coded pills (green = deposit, blue = withdrawal) for instant visual parsing.
The strategy simulator is where the platform earns trust for the long term. It lets users (or their advisors) run up to 100 market scenarios — including recession, inflation spikes, and custom growth assumptions — and see how their plan holds up.
The simulator hub surfaces three distinct tools: CPP & OAS Optimization, Scenario Simulator, and Compare Plans. Each is color-coded and leads to its own dedicated flow, making the entry point feel like a toolkit rather than a single overwhelming interface.
Timing CPP and OAS is one of the highest-stakes decisions a Canadian retiree makes. Starting CPP at 70 instead of 65 can mean significantly more lifetime income. I designed this as a dedicated tool rather than burying it in settings, because the decision deserves full attention.
This challenge was explicitly AI-first, and I used three tools deliberately — each for a different phase of work. The goal wasn't to outsource design decisions, but to compress the time between "blank page" and "informed iteration" so I could spend the 5 days on strategy rather than setup.
Image
Emotional tone was off
AI-generated layouts defaulted to dense data tables with no hierarchy. Retirees aren't analysts. I manually restructured every screen to lead with the "so what" before the detail.
Missing trust signals
No AI tool suggested the CDIC badge on login, or the "How we calculated this" transparency links in cashflow. Those came from understanding what makes a 65-year-old feel safe handing over their account data.
Ignored regulatory edge cases
AI layouts had no concept of RRIF minimum withdrawals, OAS clawback thresholds, or LIF contribution limits. I had to layer all of that back in as alert states and contextual warnings.
Generic component patterns
The deposit/withdrawal ordering in the Custom Plan is a specific financial UX pattern that AI had no reference for. I designed the drag-to-reorder pill grid from scratch after realising the AI output was unusable.
Domain expertise is a design skill
Once I understood why withdrawal sequencing matters, the information architecture became obvious. The research sprint was the most valuable investment of the week.
AI accelerates iteration, not judgment
The tools saved real time. But every decision that mattered — what to show first, how to frame risk — required human judgment. AI gave me more iterations to evaluate. It didn't evaluate them for me.
Complexity must be layered, not ignored
Caroline needs calm. Dumplin needs depth. Progressive disclosure was the answer — the Custom Plan and simulator are opt-in. The dashboard works without any of them.
Emotional design is structural, not decorative
The confidence statement before numbers, the A+ card before the table, the "On track" badge — none of those are styling choices. They're decisions about what users need to feel before they can process information.
Trust is designed, not assumed
Every copy choice and confirmation pattern carries weight when users hand over their life savings. Small signals — the CDIC badge, "How we calculated this" — collectively say: we take this seriously.
5 days
Full platform designed end-to-end
4 user types
Served without compromising any experience
100+ scenarios
Supported in the strategy simulator
The most important design decisions in high-stakes domains happen before you open Figma