From landing page to decision hub
Helping investors see what matters in seconds
CommSec, the brokerage arm of Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), leads the Australian online trading market with over 2.6 million clients. Its platforms enable trading in Australian and international markets.
This started as a homepage refresh. The original conversation was heading toward familiar territory: tidy the layout, modernise the UI, bring web closer to mobile. But the more we looked at how investors actually used the portal, the clearer it became that the homepage wasn’t a page problem, it was a decision problem.
When someone logs in, they’re rarely browsing for fun. They’re trying to answer a handful of urgent questions: Where do I stand? What’s changed? Do I need to act? The project shifted from “make it look better” to “make it work better in the moment investors arrive” — turning the homepage from a pass-through screen into a place that helps people understand and move with confidence.
This wasn’t a clean-sheet redesign. It was more like renovating a house that’s been extended for 15 years by different owners, with half the wiring undocumented.
Early on, the gravitational pull was towards the safest option: replicate mobile on the web for consistency. On paper it’s tidy. In practice, it would have produced a page that looks familiar but still feels generic, because the web experience has different strengths and different expectations. That tension showed up everywhere: predefined features and legacy KPIs dictating scope, conflicting stakeholder opinions, and a continuing push to copy mobile instead of using web properly.
Then came the reality of the platform itself. This was sitting on a 15-year-old design and tech stack, with fragmented systems and complex account hierarchies, and data ownership spread across teams. When you’re designing a dashboard that depends on accurate, joined-up data, those constraints aren’t “edge cases” — they become the design brief.
And finally, there was the trust issue. Investing products don’t get the luxury of being a bit wrong. The team was dealing with inconsistent data feeds that undermined trust, while also needing to balance simplicity for beginners with enough depth for advanced investors. That’s a hard line to walk: oversimplify and power users disengage; overload and newer investors bounce.
Left to right: Legacy client portal home page, replicating mobile on web and the mobile homepage.
Problem Statement:
The opportunity?
I started with a simple question: why do people land here, and why do they leave so quickly?
Analytics delivered a blunt verdict: engagement was weak (37 seconds on average, and only 2% of users scrolled past below the fold). Behaviour was “navigation-first” — not because the homepage was compelling, but because users were effectively funnelled through it as a default landing page. That’s a classic sign the page isn’t earning its screen time, even with roughly 60 million landings in 2024.
From there, the research focus shifted to “what does a seamless investing experience look like, and what gets in the way?” The questions covered the full journey: how investors define success, where they get stuck, what slows down understanding, and what the homepage would need to provide so people could move from insight to action without friction.
Interviews and concept testing reinforced the pattern: investors wanted the page to surface what matters quickly, especially time-sensitive signals like announcements tied to holdings, pending orders, and transactions. They didn’t need more information; they needed information that was easier to interpret.
Moderated concept testing with eight existing customers to validate direction early.
A past research review to confirm these weren’t new or isolated pain points.
Competitor analysis across ten global bank-backed platforms, most of which already leaned into personalised dashboards and contextual insights.
Left to right: competitive analysis, interview guideline, research insight
When they log in, they want a clear snapshot of total performance so they can understand their position and make timely decisions.
If they manage multiple portfolios, they need to switch and compare easily to see how each contributes to overall performance.
When markets move, they want to quickly see which holdings are affected, so they can decide whether to buy, sell, or hold.
When external events hit, they want relevant news surfaced instantly so they can act.
This was the moment the homepage stopped being a “welcome screen” and started being framed as an investing tool.
I want my portfolio on the first page, like a dashboard, without having to click through to Holdings.
CommSec Customer
The biggest inflection point was choosing to challenge the default direction. The project documentation spells it out: the initial direction focused on mobile layout replication, prioritising consistency over context, and it overlooked what web can do best — richer data, interactivity, and contextual use. So the work pivoted. The new aim was to reframe the homepage from a basic expectation into a delighter, by combining user intent with platform capability. In other words: don’t just make it look modern. Make it useful in the moment investors arrive.
Reframing the homepage from a basic expectation into a delighter through the Kano framework
Once the direction was set, the next risk was predictability. Personalisation can quickly become messy if the page is constantly shifting. So a big chunk of the process was about putting in foundations: clear structure, and rules for what stays stable vs what can adapt. This stage is captured as “Establishing the Fundamentals” in the design process. The practical aim here was scale: a homepage system that could flex for different investor needs without turning into a random stack of modules.
The mechanism of how page layout can support investors by matching the way people naturally process information and fulfilling the page's strategic goals
With stakeholder opinions pulling in different directions, the fastest way to align wasn’t another meeting — it was artefacts. The process deliberately moved through iterative quick prototyping, using early layouts to test hierarchy, density, and the feel of the experience before investing in polish. This is where the design got shaped by “what helps someone decide” rather than “what looks clean”.
We tested how people scanned the page, what they understood without explanation, where they hesitated, and what caused them to abandon the page and jump elsewhere. That’s where the real design decisions happened: not in perfect UI, but in removing friction, tightening pathways, and shaping a homepage that guides without overwhelming.
Alignment came from artefacts, not meetings: quick prototypes tested the experience early.
Investors don’t just want data. They want to understand what changed, what matters, and what to do next. The process explicitly called out communicating insights derived from data (data storytelling) as part of shifting the paradigm. This wasn’t a fluffy add-on; it was a way to increase comprehension and trust, especially when information is dense.
Investors need a clear story, not just data: what changed, what matters, what’s next.
From there, the work moved into creating options and converging into an approved concept, supported by a prototype link for stakeholders and delivery teams. The point wasn’t to present ten different designs. It was to explore the space, prove what works, and then commit to a direction that could actually be built.
Explored options, proved what works, then committed to a buildable concept, backed by a prototype for delivery.
From there, the work moved into creating options and converging into an approved concept, supported by a prototype link for stakeholders and delivery teams. The point wasn’t to present ten different designs. It was to explore the space, prove what works, and then commit to a direction that could actually be built.
The solution is a homepage that behaves like a personalised investing hub, not a generic entry point. It’s designed to answer the core questions investors arrive with — fast — using the “jobs to be done” as the backbone:
Behind the scenes, the solution is also a structural decision: design the page so it can support personalisation without sacrificing predictability. That’s what makes it viable for 2.6 million investors rather than just a niche “power user dashboard”.
Solution prototype tested with CommSec customers
The biggest shift wasn’t visual. It was credibility.
This work started in the danger zone most “homepage refreshes” die in: lots of opinions, strong instincts, and a default push to replicate mobile for the sake of consistency. By the end, it stopped being a debate and became a decision. We moved the homepage from “a concept on slides” to a validated prototype that’s now in the delivery backlog, which means it has an actual path to implementation rather than living in design limbo.
Just as important, it created something that’s harder to measure but far more valuable inside a large organisation: shared clarity. Instead of stakeholders arguing about what the homepage should look like, the team aligned on what it should do — help investors understand their position quickly and act with confidence — backed by research and moderated concept testing with existing customers.
And that clarity matters because the upside is real. When a page gets ~60 millions of landings a year but only earns seconds of attention, the cost isn’t cosmetic — it’s missed engagement and missed decision support. This project put a practical, buildable direction in place to change that, without pretending the legacy platform constraints don’t exist.
This project reinforced that “consistency” can be a lazy goal. Copying mobile onto web would have been politically easy, but it wouldn’t have improved outcomes. The real work was reframing the homepage from a navigation screen into a decision-support tool, then backing that stance with evidence.
I also learnt (again) that personalisation is less about clever modules and more about trust and structure. Without stable patterns and reliable data, even the best UI feels random and people stop believing what they see.
Finally, working inside a legacy stack sharpened my focus on designing for delivery. The best concept is worthless if it can’t survive system constraints, ownership boundaries, and incremental rollout. Designing with those realities in mind made the solution stronger, not weaker.
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It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning.
–– Claude Bernard ––