Blackstone Investor Portal Login Redesign
Product Manager | Blackstone Technology & Innovations | April 2020
Key Responsibilities: Competitor Analysis, Process Flow Documentation, UI Design, HTML/CSS Review, Feature Launch, Driving Adoption
The Challenge
First impressions rarely come with second chances. So, the Blackstone Limited Partner (L. P.) login experience — an L. P.’s introduction to the Blackstone Investor Portal — was in dire need of a revamp.
L. P.s commit millions in capital to Blackstone funds and regularly visit the Investor Portal, BXAccess, to monitor their investments, download fund documents, manage account and legal preferences, and respond to capital calls. Redesigning the login experience had the potential to serve existing L. P.s as well as attract new ones, increasing ease-of-use for one and all.
In my role as a Product Manager at Blackstone, I asked myself: how do I leverage UX principles to visually position Blackstone as a technology-forward, trustworthy firm that offers a hassle-free, reliable view into an L. P.’s investments*?
*investments that made me go, “I didn’t know a number could have so many zeroes.”
The Solution
I modernized the Blackstone Investor Portal login experience and created subtle but effective design anchors to promote feelings of trust and enthusiasm in L. P.s.
Aware that L. P. trust is rooted in security, I coupled the login experience upgrade with the launch of 2-factor authentication (2FA) via Twilio, allowing L. P.s to safeguard their data. Enabling this brand-new feature required close collaboration with Engineering and L. P. Relations.
To fuel my design iterations, I studied login experiences of competing Private Equity firms and identified successful UX themes and common fallacies across the industry. I created several prototypes and process flows* on Adobe Illustrator and LucidChart for internal review and surveyed L. P.s at the close of the project to validate the final design.
*due to confidentiality agreements with Blackstone, I am unable to publish early prototypes and process flows.
Out with the Old…
Prior to 2020, the BXAccess login page was functional, albeit not beautiful or trust-inspiring. It offered self-serve username and password recovery features but was lacking 2FA capabilities and easily digestible FAQs. The brand presence was minimal at best.
Competitor Analysis
| Brand Representation | Majestic Background | Centered Login Form | Username Recovery | Password Recovery | Remember Me | FAQ/Help | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KKR | Strong | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Apollo | Weak | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Thoma Bravo | Weak | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Carlyle | Strong | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| TPG | Weak | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Warburg Pincus | Medium | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
Studying the login experiences of 6 Blackstone competitors in the Private Equity space, I built the above feature comparison matrix. Through this process, I narrowed in on UX concepts and UI elements that are consistently leveraged across the most inviting login pages:
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Most investors struggle to part with large sums of money without reassurance that their investments may lead to rewards or greater fulfillment. It is critical, then, especially for wealth management firms, to evoke a larger sense of purpose in their investors. See KKR and TPG: by infusing grandeur and powerful imagery into their online presence — transporting their investors to a dazzling metropolis or the Golden Gate Bridge — these firms are subconsciously hinting that investing with either one is bound to produce wide-reaching impact.
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Equipping users with instantaneous conflict-resolution in the form of self-serve username and password recovery flows is an effective design technique to minimize chances of user distraction or abandonment. All 6 competitors offer online password recovery, while all but KKR and Carlyle offer username/email recovery as well. Additionally, in the case of Apollo, though username/password reset links are available, 1-on-1 customer service is also easily accessible through a phone call.
I also observed some design choices that created friction in the user journey:
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Placement of the company logo in the top-left of the webpage is the most common pattern (see Apollo, Thoma Bravo, TPG, Warburg Pincus); however, peripheral placement of the logo can delay a user’s association of a webpage with the respective brand and weaken first impressions. In contrast, KKR and Carlyle utilize the center of the webpage, directly in a user’s line of sight, to boldly proclaim their brand names. Immediately, users are reassured that they’ve landed on the correct page and are entering a portal to a firm that embraces its reputation.
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Tactfully minimizing effort of re-entry positions the act of logging in as a routine, low-barrier process, for which users need not spend time or energy recalling credentials. Over time, repeated reinforcement that saving login credentials with a website does not cause negative consequences also builds trust between the user and the brand. Across my research, only KKR offered a “Remember Me” checkbox feature.
In with the New…
Through hours of collaboration and iteration, my team and I launched the new-and-improved Blackstone Investor Portal login experience in April 2020. In addition to employing UX tactics like majestic backgrounds and strong brand association, we added links to customized login experiences for investor sub-groups (e.g., BX Unit Holders, BCRED Shareholders) and implemented 2FA to drive increased trust and security for Blackstone investors (with information on updating 2FA devices conveniently located in the FAQs!).
Our research showed that investors typically logged in to the Investor Portal via desktop/laptop; however, creating a mobile-friendly login experience was important for establishing consistency and accessibility. We incorporated the same design findings above to support mobile logins.
L. P. Satisfaction Survey
The team circulated an L. P. Satisfaction Survey to over 6,000 Blackstone L. P.s to understand overall contentment among the user base and identify areas for improvement. While the login page was not the sole focus of this survey, we received incredibly useful feedback on the Investor Portal as a whole from high-net-worth individuals and multi-client investors. Before this, the last L. P. Survey was circulated in 2016, over 4 years prior.
300+
responses received
84%
of L. P.s find BXAccess equally or more intuitive than other portals
90%
of L. P.s find BXAccess equally or more detailed than other portals
Key Takeaways
Design is subjective. Research is objective.
Every contributor has unique and valuable opinions about visual, spatial, and emotional elements of a design. Some will champion rounded buttons, serif fonts, and a surplus of whitespace, while some will champion the exact opposite. There’s really no way to combat this subjectivity other than with tangible, objective evidence from research on industry trends and tried-and-tested design practices.
Simplicity isn’t simple to create.
My guiding principles in redesigning the Blackstone login experience were simplicity and ease-of-use, yet, there was no shortage of edge cases and nuances in the login flow to integrate into the overall strategy. While it may seem that a username field, a password field, and a login button are the only 3 non-negotiable components, we identified countless forks a user could take on a login journey that would demand additional functionality. Expecting the unexpected in advance helps designers create what a third-party observer would view as a simple, effortless experience.
No detail is too obvious to exclude from documentation.
Collaborating with my Engineering team to bring the revamped login experience to life was a tricky but rewarding process. At times, what felt like a glaring CSS error to me was hardly on the radar of my developers, and what felt like a blatant gap in specifications to my developers was a “Duh!” moment for me. Lesson learned — it’s not fair to expect others to find obvious the same details you do. Explain as much as possible in the first go.