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Wilmington Trust / Wealth Management

Giving Clients Control Over Their Financial Accounts

Designing a flexible account-grouping experience that gives wealth-management clients greater control over how they organize and manage their financial accounts.

Industry
Financial Services
Project
Account Order & Groupings
Focus
Product Design / Interaction Design / Information Architecture
Organization
Wilmington Trust
The Manage Account Order and Groupings page in a browser window, listing account groups and individual accounts with their market values.

The vision

A More Personalized Wealth-Management Experience

Managing wealth often involves multiple financial accounts, each serving a different purpose.

While clients could access their financial information, the experience offered limited flexibility in how accounts were organized.

The opportunity was to introduce a more personalized account-management experience that gave clients control over how their financial relationships were presented.

Give clients the flexibility to organize their financial accounts in ways that make sense to them.

The problem

Clients Couldn’t Organize Accounts Around Their Needs

Client feedback and user research identified a gap in the existing wealth-management experience.

Clients managing multiple financial accounts lacked the ability to create custom account groupings.

Without this functionality, they were limited to the account organization provided by the application.

The challenge was to introduce flexible account organization while maintaining clarity within an already complex financial interface.

Proposed experience
Proposed account list titled Manage Account Order and Groupings, with two collapsible account groups above individual accounts, each showing a market value.
The proposed account list. Custom groups sit alongside individual accounts, each with its market value, plus controls for creating groups, reordering rows, and opening group actions.

Understanding users

Turning Client Feedback Into a Product Opportunity

Client feedback and research established the need for greater flexibility in how accounts were organized.

Three design objectives helped guide the proposed experience.

  1. Objective 01

    Flexibility

    Allow clients to create and manage account groups that reflect their individual needs.

  2. Objective 02

    Clarity

    Maintain a clear distinction between individual accounts and custom groups.

  3. Objective 03

    Confidence

    Provide understandable interactions, validation, and feedback throughout account-management tasks.

Defining the experience

From Account Lists to Personalized Organization

The new feature needed to support the complete account-grouping workflow without requiring clients to navigate between disconnected experiences.

The proposed workflow brought group creation, account selection, and account management into a more cohesive experience.

Step 01 of 07

View accounts

Clients start from the account list, where existing groups and individual accounts appear together with their market values.

See the account list

Design decision 01

Making Complex Account Hierarchies Easier to Manage

Introducing custom groups required the interface to distinguish between individual accounts and collections of related accounts.

The design uses expandable groups, indentation, account labels, market values, and contextual actions to communicate those relationships.

Users can view the account hierarchy while retaining important financial context.

Design rationale

The interface needed to introduce organizational flexibility without making financial information harder to understand.

Proposed account list with two collapsible account groups and several individual accounts. Each row shows a name, a market value, and a drag handle; group rows also have an overflow menu.
Select a numbered annotation to see how each part of the account list communicates structure.

  1. Custom groups are shown as collapsible rows, so clients can scan their groups first and expand one to see the accounts inside.

  2. Accounts that are not in a group keep their own rows, labeled with the account name and a masked account number to separate them from groups.

  3. Every row, group or account, keeps its market value in a consistent column, so the financial context stays visible while clients reorganize.

  4. A drag handle on each row supports re-ordering both individual accounts and account groups, as the page instructions describe.

  5. An overflow menu appears only on group rows, keeping group-specific actions next to the group they affect.

Design decision 02

Giving Clients More Than One Way to Organize Accounts

The group-creation experience supports two approaches to account selection.

Clients can drag accounts into the group-selection area or select accounts using checkboxes.

These interactions provide different ways to complete the same task.

The selected accounts are displayed in a dedicated review area before the group is saved.

Design rationale

Providing explicit selection controls alongside direct manipulation can improve discoverability and reduce reliance on drag-and-drop interactions.

Create New Group dialog with empty Group Name and Reason for change fields, an empty drop area describing drag-and-drop or checkbox selection, and an account list with checkboxes and drag handles.
Two ways to add accountsThe empty selection area explains both options: drag accounts from the list below, or select them with checkboxes and choose Add Accounts.
Create New Group dialog with the group name Bayard’s Family Accounts entered and two selected accounts shown as removable cards above the account list, where one checkbox is checked.
Review before savingSelected accounts appear as cards in the review area, each showing its account number and market value, with a control to remove it.

Design decision 03

Keeping Account Management Predictable

Once groups are created, clients need a straightforward way to maintain them.

The proposed experience introduces contextual actions for editing, renaming, and deleting account groups.

Dedicated forms allow clients to update group names and related account labels.

Design rationale

Grouping-related actions should remain discoverable and consistent without overwhelming the primary account list.

Account list with the Group Actions menu open on a group row, showing Edit, Rename, and Delete.
Actions stay with the groupA menu on each group row offers Edit, Rename, and Delete, keeping grouping actions next to the group they affect.
Rename Group & Accounts form with a Group Name field, three Account Name fields, and Save and Cancel buttons.
A dedicated rename formThe Rename Group & Accounts form lets clients update the group name and the names of the accounts within it, then save or cancel.

Design decision 04

Building Confidence Through Clear Feedback

Financial account-management interactions require clear communication when users make changes.

The designs include required-field validation, Save and Cancel actions, and success confirmation messages.

These states help users understand when information is missing and whether an action has been completed.

Design rationale

Clear feedback reduces ambiguity and helps users navigate multi-step account-management workflows.

Action Required
Rename Group & Accounts form with an empty Group Name field and an error message at the top reading Please enter a Group Name.
Required-field validation. When the group name is missing, an error message at the top of the form says what needs attention.
Action Confirmed
Account list with a success message reading Bedingfield Trust Accounts Group was renamed successfully.
Success confirmation. After saving, a message on the account list confirms the change was completed.

Final experience

A More Flexible Way to Manage Financial Accounts

The proposed account-grouping feature introduces a dedicated experience for organizing financial accounts. Clients can create custom groups, assign accounts, adjust account order, and manage their existing account structure.

The experience combines flexible organization with a structured financial interface.

The Manage Account Order and Groupings page within the Wilmington Trust site, showing a success message above a list of account groups and accounts with market values, overflow menus, and drag handles.

  • Create

    Build custom account groups.

  • Organize

    Arrange accounts around individual needs.

  • Manage

    Edit and maintain account relationships.

Outcomes & learnings

Personalization Should Simplify Complexity

The project explored how a new account-grouping capability could address a need identified through client feedback and research.

The intended value was to provide clients with greater control over their account organization while maintaining clarity and confidence throughout the experience.

Key learnings

  1. Flexibility needs structure

    Additional customization should not come at the expense of clarity.

  2. Interaction details matter

    Validation, confirmation, and clear action states contribute to a complete user experience.

  3. Financial information requires context

    Organizational features should preserve access to important account details.

Thoughtful product design turns complex workflows into experiences that feel intuitive, flexible, and manageable.

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