At the beginning of my internship, I participated in onboarding meetings with my team's product owner.
Specifically, I learned how Jackson simplifies retirement planning by helping clients to invest in annuities. This clarified the purpose of what my team was building.
To better understand the project's progress to date, I reviewed my team's list of product deployments in Jira.
Our product owner also tasked me with creating a problem statement, which we then compared to the team's existing statement to ensure they were aligned.
Once I grasped the project's objective, I familiarized myself with the target audience—financial advisors and their clients.
The personas derived from this audience had entirely different roles when interacting with the calculator. As a result, each required tailored testing processes.
Before fully integrating with the team, I learned how they modified traditional Scrum framework by weaving Lean UX into their biweekly sprint cycles.
My team also implemented a staggered sprint structure. This involves designers working a sprint ahead of developers, allowing for incremental product deployment.
My internship spanned eight two-week sprints and was rooted in the team's modified Scrum framework.
Product demos were presented to stakeholders every four weeks. Aside from working on the project itself, I was also assigned a few intern-related duties.
Note that the team completed foundational work on the calculator and deployed the first step prior to my arrival.
Because we deployed this tool incrementally, my team was able to track the completion of major product milestones.
The timeline below highlights these milestones—including those completed before my internship began and the end product available on Jackson's website.
During my final days at Jackson, I reflected on my experience working with Lean UX, iterative development, and user testing in an agile environment.
The final calculator was deployed shortly after my internship ended and quickly became a valuable resource for financial professionals across Jackson's extensive distribution network.
The tool also earned Jackson acclaim from major financial publications and nomination as a finalist in the 2022 Wealth Management Industry Awards.
I'm eager to apply all that I learned from this internship to future UX roles and challenges.
