UX RESEARCH | WIREFRAMING
Banking Platform for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the UK
Product Design & Strategy for a B2B FinTech client (NDA)
Bank Account Registration Flow Design for a start-up bank that focuses on making cross-border transactions easier for Small and Medium Enterprises in the UK, following Brexit.
ROLE
Product Design, Strategy for a FinTech Client, responsible for Project scoping, UX Research, Information Architecture, Persona Hypothesis, Wireframes, Usability Testing
TEAM
Haley Green, Matt Scarnaty
DURATION
5 weeks
SKILLS / TOOLS
Competitor Analysis, Persona Hypothesis, Wireframing, Usability Testing
Figma, GSuite
Understanding product goals & client goals
Our client (confidential) is an early start-up bank based in the UK. They focus on providing easier cross-border transactions to small and medium businesses, especially with the onset of BREXIT and its implications.
With this effort, the client wanted our team to define their product experience from scratch. Given the 5 week timeline of the project, we narrowed down our scope to Competitor Analysis, Persona Understanding, Red Route Flow Identification, Low Fidelity Wireframes, and Guerilla Testing.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might we build an interface for a new bank to encourage small and medium business owners to apply for an account?
ESTABLISHING THE DESIGN SCOPE
Understand the SME banking market and competitors for gaps, opportunities, and threats
Understand the Client's unique value proposition
Design a key user flow / red route for the Client's banking platform, to encourage their Target customer to sign up
UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS CHALLENGES
Our client’s goals were to -
Break into the SME banking market which is currently led by the Big Four banks
Convince businesses/customers to bank with the Client's company over market shareholders including UK's Big Four Banks and other digital and scale challengers
Also, as a start-up bank, our client wanted to use our design mockup to gain investors to build their actual product.
DELIVERABLES
Competitor Analysis
User Personas
User Flow for red route
Wireframes
Usability Testing & Results
Exploration/Discovery
UNDERSTANDING GAPS, OPPORTUNITIES & THREATS FOR COMPETITOR PRODUCTS
Keeping in mind the business needs, we set out to do a heuristic analysis of 3 major competitors to understand gaps, opportunities, and threats for the Client - Lloyds Bank, Starling Bank, and DBS.
Lloyds is UK’s one of four leading traditional banks owning 65% of the market share for SME banking, still operating through brick-and-mortar establishments, both Starling & DBS are primarily digital competitors.
I took up the analysis of Lloyds’ business banking page, while Haley and Matt looked at the other two banks. We analyzed their digital platforms for business banking, picking 4 heuristics to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
IDENTIFYING KEY SUCCESS METRICS FOR THE CLIENT’S BANK
We compared the key design successes and failures of the competitor banks, to establish Success Metrics for the client’s bank -
1. Omnichannel Experience
Banks should successfully allow users to switch between channels of their choice without disrupting their journey. Our recommendation to the client was to develop both a website & an app-based product for creating a continuous user experience.
2. Clear & Targeted Call to Action
Banks should give the user clear, motivating, and powerful CTAs to encourage the user to take the next step. The competitor analysis showed that all competitors had clear CTA on each landing page, but some competitors fared better than others by reducing the number of CTA actions presented avoiding the paradox of choice.
3. Setting Expectations before the Banking Registration/Onboarding Process
Bank processes can be overwhelming & require a lot of documentation to go through. Good experiences should inform the user of expectations from them before getting the process started. Information such as the overall timeline of the process and the steps involved will set the user up for success in completing the registration process.
4. Information and Customer Resources
Financial processes can feel overwhelming. Providing FAQs and documentation for banking requirements & processes, as well as elaborating with “Learn More” links where necessary will allow the user to be fully informed and ease in with the process.
5. Element of Trust
Trust is central to a bank's success and can drive engagement, increase loyalty and directly impact customer decision-making. Security, transparency, and streamlined customer journeys can play a key role in building trust in financial services. Being a new bank on the market, it would be important for our client to build trust to build their customer base.
6. Branding/Aesthetics
While also helping to build Trust, strong branding and aesthetics could create an identity unique to your product. Competitor Analysis showed us how cohesive branding communicates a bank’s mission & values, and builds loyalty.
Wireframing the Primary User Flow
STICKING TO LOW FIDELITY
I worked on defining the new Homepage for the Customer Experience while my teammates worked on the SME Banking Products Landing Page & the Bank Account Registration flow. Due to the time constraint, we narrowed our scope to a low-fidelity website mockup that can feed into the Client's current website.
Design Goals - Homepage -
Introduce the key value propositions of the product and convince users to make the decision to open a bank account with the Client.
Key Design Decisions -
Using customer-friendly language
Transparency & simplicity with a clear information hierarchy
Clear Call to Action to aid the customer in task completion
Providing the User opportunities for seeking additional information and help if required
Aesthetic design
PROTOTYPE
Design Validation
USER TESTING
We conducted guerilla usability tests with 2 people who fit the target persona and 3 people who were laypeople.
OUTCOMES
- All users successfully completed the flow.
- 3 out of 5 users found the financial jargon on the design hard to follow. Where possible, the language should be replaced with more simple and user-friendly language, but where not possible, provide links to learn more or point to the FAQs as required.
- 3 out 5 users had trouble following the registration flow as it did not fit with their mental model - Users were not sure what “Create an Application Profile” meant and what information each step in the Form was seeking. The form could follow a more logical order, with short descriptions of what information is being asked.
- 2 out of 5 users thought that some questions in the Registration flow were not inclusive to small businesses that are just starting up, and did not have an annual revenue yet. This could be revised to include terms like projected revenue.
Reflections and Impact
EFFECTIVELY MANAGING CLIENT EXPECTATIONS
Our project started with the client requesting high-fidelity mocks at the end of the 5 week period to show investors. Through proper project scoping, we convinced the client and managed client expectations to create a more comprehensive study for them to move forward with creating their actual product, instead of jumping into creating high-fidelity prototypes per their original request.
EXPLAINING UX TO THE CLIENT
Throughout the project, we brought forward important UX concepts to help the client understand the value of UX and prioritize user experience through a successful design partnership. They greatly appreciated our design recommendations & feedback at the end of the project.
