Charles Schwab Document Platform

Enterprise Internal Tool for Financial Advisors

15% user adoption increase with clearer language reduced abandonment

Client
Schwab banking clients

Year
2023

CASE STUDIES

Project Details

Challenge

Thousands of financial advisors relied on paper forms, faxes, and buggy Chromebook-based digital forms. No unified document signing system existed for branch operations:

No digital form signing in branches; paper only
In-branch signing of limited digital forms was buggy due to Chromebook usage
Advisors had to walk clients through signing step-by-step
Long turnaround times for emailed documents
Both clients and advisors were spending excessive time sending documents via email, fax, or mail to set up accounts—a manual process that frustrated everyone.

Approach

Owned end-to-end UX for in-house document signing platform (replacing DocuSign)
Analyzed user journeys of existing in-house solutions from both advisor and client perspectives
Created user flows mapping the complete signing experience from email notification to completion
Designed mobile-first iterations progressing with backend capabilities:
- Iteration 1: Basic capabilities with sorted applications
- Iteration 2: Added application status tracking for issue flagging
- Iteration 3: Action item due dates and complex action lists
Conducted usability testing of email designs focusing on status, content, and user flows
Collaborated with design governance team on compliance requirements
Negotiated with governance team to balance technical capabilities with design system constraints

Outcome

✓ Increased user adoption 15% through iterative design improvements

✓ Zero compliance issues—intuitive yet fully compliant with WCAG standards

✓ Streamlined engineering handoff with detailed Figma specs

✓ Reduced implementation questions through comprehensive documentation

✓ Successfully replaced external tool (DocuSign) with in-house solution

The platform consolidated a fragmented, manual process into a one-stop document signing system that financial advisors could use to guide clients efficiently.