Cetera Dashboard

A Powerful, Personalized Cockpit for Advisors

Grounded in deep research and iterative design, we created a dashboard experience that surfaces what matters and puts advisors in control of how they work.

  • User Testing

    To get decisive, actionable findings, we let users explore without artificial restrictions. We design our prototypes to accommodate this need, as a final product would.

  • Prototypes

    If a picture is a thousand words, a high-fidelity prototype is the entire story. Bringing the user experience to life with a fully-interactive artifact is a low-cost, high-value way to iterate without the investment of code.

  • Visual Design

    Through imagery, messaging, color and typography, we deliberate over pixels, consistency, readability, contrast, accessibility and creativity.

  • In-Depth Interviews

    Climb inside the world of the user with structured interviews that bring their unique voices into the design process.

  • Competitive Analysis

    See where you shine, where you don’t, and how to leverage that intel to fill the most important gaps in your experience.

  • Alignment Workshops

    Bring stakeholders together through structured, facilitated sessions that establish priorities and strategies for a path forward.

  • Functional Specifications

    Converting your designs into well-documented specifications with functionality, flows, layout, and styles ensures that no developer has to guess what comes next.

  • Design Thinking

    Infuse empathy with an iterative approach that places the needs and perspectives of the users at the forefront of the design process.

  • Design Systems

    Good design will translate to a good design system — and vice versa. Build your brand with well-defined styles and components at the heart, and it will grow and breathe well.

  • Quantitative Research

    Large scale instruments to gauge user preferences 
and behaviors to impact strategy, scope and 
design decisions.

The Challenge

As Cetera continued to evolve the AdviceWorks platform, the homepage became a critical—but increasingly constrained—part of the advisor workflow. It struggled to keep pace with the complexity of how advisors operate and the growing ecosystem of tools they rely on.

Despite its intent, the dashboard delivered little value—users largely ignored it and moved on.

At the same time, a wide range of ideas had emerged from prior design explorations and user research—spanning everything from customization and role-based views to AI-powered features, notifications, and new data modules. Without a unifying framework, it was unclear how these ideas should come together into a cohesive solution.

Cetera needed to answer a fundamental question:

How should this evolve into a flexible, high-value workspace that adapts to different users, surfaces the right information, and supports action in the moment?

Image of 3 wireframe concepts for the dashboard
Experience concepts

Our Approach

We partnered with Cetera to rethink the experience from the ground up—not as a static homepage, but as a flexible system designed around how advisors actually work. Through a focused, multi-phase approach, we translated a broad set of ideas into a cohesive, scalable solution.

1. Exploring Layouts & Interaction Models

We began by rapidly sketching and testing multiple directions to evaluate how the experience should be structured. This included exploring different layout paradigms, levels of information density, and interaction patterns. Advisors consistently gravitated toward more information-rich views—provided the content was relevant and actionable—and preferred experiences that made it easy to quickly assess status, surface key metrics, and take action without navigating away.

2. Defining a Modular System

Through collaborative working sessions with Cetera stakeholders, we generated and refined a broad set of potential modules. These included task-driven components, performance and account snapshots, messaging, alerts, and quick actions. Concepts were iterated and narrowed into a flexible system of building blocks—each with a clear purpose and value—designed to move beyond a fixed layout and support a more personalized, role-based experience.

Image collage of numerous module concepts
Module Concepts Prepared for Testing
Graph showing results of how each module tested
Module survey results, categorized by module type

3. Validating with Advisors at Scale

We tested these concepts with over 170 advisors and admins to understand which modules and content types delivered the most value. Task-oriented content—especially items requiring immediate attention like NIGOs—consistently rose to the top. Users showed strong interest in customization, but emphasized the need for thoughtful defaults and the ability to tailor views by role. Across the board, advisors reinforced that data must be current, accurate, and reliable—highlighting trust as a critical foundation for the experience.

4. Designing for Flexibility & Scale

With clear direction established, we translated insights into detailed designs and system-level guidance. This included defining standards for how different types of content should be presented—such as data visualizations, lists, tasks, and messaging—as well as interaction patterns for customizing layout, managing modules, and creating multiple saved views. The result is a scalable framework that enables consistency while giving advisors meaningful control over how their experience is configured and used.

Image collage showing different specifications for the page, modules and panels
Design specifications
Collage showing finished design elements
Final design elements

The Results

Cetera now has a clear, scalable framework for transforming the AdviceWorks experience into a dynamic, customizable workspace.

The team has defined a prioritized set of high-value modules, along with recommended default configurations tailored to different advisor personas. A comprehensive set of design system guidelines ensures that content—from data visualizations to task lists to messaging—can be presented in a consistent and intuitive way.

We also established a set of interaction patterns that make customization both powerful and approachable. Advisors can tailor their experience through module selection, layout adjustments, and multiple saved views—while still benefiting from thoughtfully designed defaults.

The work redefines the role of the experience—from a passive landing point to an active, task-driven workspace—laying the foundation for a more adaptive, user-centered platform that can evolve alongside both advisor needs and product capabilities.

I like it.

It makes things a lot easier to have things that are relevant where YOU want them.”

User testing participant