CFA Institute
A client communication simulator, a certificate onboarding experience, and an AI concept for the education portfolio.
- CFA Institute
- Senior UX Designer, AI & Digital Learning
- Client Communication Simulator, Sustainable Investing Certificate
- 2026
- Professional certification, education
- Web, desktop and tablet
Practising the conversation, not just the maths.
Most of a wealth qualification tests whether someone can construct a portfolio. The Private Wealth Client Communication Simulator tests whether they can hold the conversation around it — a learner meets a simulated client, runs a discovery meeting, determines a portfolio, then presents it back and defends the reasoning.
The interesting design problem is assessment. The simulator has to make a candidate feel like they are talking to a person, while quietly scoring against a weighted rubric — discovery and KYC, portfolio construction and fit, communication and rationale, client interaction and soft skills. The learner has to understand how they will be judged without that turning the conversation into a form.
Alongside it: the onboarding and study-planning experience for the Sustainable Investing Certificate, and a concept for how an AI assistant might sit across the education portfolio.
- The simulator: landing, assessment overview, scenario, discovery meeting and goal capture
- Certificate onboarding, course navigation and a study-plan builder
- AI assistant concepts for the education portfolio, including prompt design
- A stage-gate process recommendation for education product development
- Design exploration carried in phases, with options shown side by side
The questions the work had to answer.
- 01How might we make a scored conversation feel like a conversation rather than a form?
- 02How might we tell a candidate exactly how they will be judged, before they start, without them gaming it?
- 03How might we capture a client goal — value, time horizon, classification, liquidity need — without the capture getting in the way of the listening?
- 04How might we get someone from “I have enrolled” to a realistic study plan in one sitting?
- 05How might an AI assistant help across a portfolio of certificates without becoming a separate product to learn?
Six areas of design work.
Know the rubric first
- An assessment overview covering skills assessed, structure, evaluation criteria and preparation guidance
- Weighted pillars stated as percentages up front — discovery and KYC, portfolio construction and fit, communication and rationale, soft skills
- Preparation guidance that coaches behaviour, such as probing actively
A scenario in three stages
- Initial discovery meeting, portfolio determination task, follow-up client meeting
- The brief written as a role: a new advisor building a goals-based plan for a first client
- Progress carried as “task 1 of 3” so the shape of the assessment is never a surprise
Capture without interrupting
- Client goals recorded as description, dollar value, time horizon, classification and liquidity need
- Goals added and removed inline rather than through a separate screen
- An empty state that says what a good first goal looks like
Onboarding that ends in a plan
- A welcome sequence explaining how the course is designed and why it works before asking for anything
- Navigation, activity types and course policies laid out once, so they are not discovered mid-module
- A study-plan builder: set the exam date, understand the allocation, see where to invest more, then a sample fourteen-week pacing plan
AI, in service of the portfolio
- An assistant framed around the learner’s own agenda rather than a chat window
- Prompt design carried through its own phase, not treated as copywriting
- Generated artefacts — a liquidity forecast, a homework set — kept inside the course, not exported to somewhere else
Process, alongside product
- A stage-gate process recommendation for the education product portfolio, written as a deliverable in its own right
- Design exploration, requirement documentation and proof-of-concept simulations separated so each could be reviewed on its own terms
- Options presented side by side rather than a single direction defended
Assessment that teaches while it measures.
The rubric is part of the product. Publishing the weighted pillars before the simulation turns the scoring from a verdict into a description of what good practice looks like.
One sitting to a study plan. Onboarding ends with a paced plan against a real exam date rather than a welcome message and a course list.
Explored, then decided. Design options, phases and proof-of-concept simulations were built out to be compared, which is also what the stage-gate recommendation asks the wider portfolio to do.