L&G — Pension Contribution Platform
Redesigning a critical financial system for tens of thousands of pension scheme members
Redesigning a critical financial system for tens of thousands of pension scheme members
The Problem
Legal & General's pension contribution platform was failing the people who depended on it most. HR administrators and finance teams were spending hours uploading contribution files, navigating an opaque system with poor error handling and little transparency. For scheme members, the experience was confusing and disengaging — making it difficult to understand their own financial future.
The brief was clear: rebuild the platform from the ground up, without breaking the regulatory and compliance obligations that governed every interaction.
My Role
I led a cross-functional team of 7 — spanning UX research, product design, and content — as the Lead Product Design Director on the engagement. I was responsible for setting the overall UX strategy, managing the design relationship with L&G's in-house experience team, and ensuring every decision held up against both user needs and financial regulation. I operated as the senior design voice in all stakeholder sessions, from discovery through to delivery.
The Core Challenge
The hardest part of this project wasn't the complexity of the interface — it was designing within the constraints of financial regulation without letting compliance become an excuse for poor experience.
Every design decision had to be stress-tested against FCA guidelines, accessibility standards, and L&G's own internal governance. Early in the project, several promising interaction patterns had to be rethought entirely when they conflicted with how contribution data could legally be presented. Rather than treating compliance as a blocker, we used it as a design constraint — it forced us to be clearer, more deliberate, and ultimately more trustworthy in the interface we built.
Key Decisions
Restructuring the error model. The original system surfaced validation errors late, after file upload — leaving administrators with no clear path to resolution. We redesigned the entire error and validation flow to catch issues progressively, giving users specific, actionable feedback at each step rather than a wall of failures at the end.
Designing for two very different user groups simultaneously. Our research surfaced a significant gap between small business owners managing their own schemes and experienced corporate HR and finance teams. Rather than designing for an average that served neither, we developed adaptive flows that met each group where they were — without fragmenting the product into two separate experiences.
Establishing a shared language with the client team. L&G had strong in-house opinions about the platform's direction. A significant part of my role was building enough trust and alignment with their experience team that we could move fast without constantly revisiting decisions. We introduced shared design principles early, which became the decision-making filter for the rest of the project.
Outcome
The redesigned platform launched to tens of thousands of pension scheme members, with contribution file processing reduced from hours to minutes. The new system achieved full accessibility compliance — a first for this platform — and delivered an experience that L&G's internal team adopted as the benchmark for future product work within the division.