Overview
A top commercial bank found its customer growth rate slowing. They need to embark on a new transformative journey to develop a customer-centric digital banking experience to retain existing customers and attract new ones.
The goal of the program is to create a top-notch digital experience for startup banking customers across all digital channels and build adaptive product offerings that will satisfy early-stage startups' banking needs as they continue to grow.
My Role
Lead UX/UI Designer
Design Operations
My Team
3 UX/UI Designers
1 UX Researcher
1 Content Strategist
5 Product Managers
21 Front-end Developers
My Tools
Figma
Sketch
InVision
UserTesting
Impact
I was able to guide my clients to take a user-centered approach in their product development. I successfully changed the product managers’ mindset from “I know what users want” to “Let’s do some research on this”. I helped changed how the team worked and guided them to adopt a design-thinking methodology and a customer-centric approach. This helped us build a product that truly met my client’s business goals and created an experience that is meaningful to their customers.
Process
I. Proof of Concept
We kicked off a collaborative workshop with the bank to better understand the business objectives and our client’s needs. Over the course of 8 days, we built out the experience vision that formed the foundation of the new commercial banking experience.
In 8 days, we interviewed 2 startup founders and created a persona and user journey map to guide our design. We delivered an interactive prototype to illustrate our future vision of the product that was a simple and personalized experience for the startup founders.
I presented the product vision to the Chief Product Officer of the bank, and he really liked the personalized experience and delightful design.
“This was so beautiful that I didn’t know whether I should laugh or cry, and it was just what our bank has been looking for.”
— Chief Product Officer of the bank
II. Research, Define, and Prioritize
After seeing our vision, our client decided to proceed with bringing the prototype to life. We started with more in-depth research with startup founders. We then hosted a series of workshops with product managers, designers, and researchers to define and prioritize features based on the most pressing problems that startup founders face.
Customer journey map discussion
Led the Feature Prioritization and Journey Mapping Exercise
I led the discussion with the business stakeholders, and leveraged research data to advocate for the customers when deciding what features to prioritize. I facilitated a journey mapping exercise with product managers to link features to each stage of the customer’s journey. This helped us evaluate if the feature actually addresses customers’ needs and pain points at each stage.
Co-design with Product Managers
I facilitated ideation and sketch sessions with product managers to define design directions. During this exercise, I also uncovered the unchangeable business or technology constraints.
Ideation with product manager
III. Review Workflows, Prototypes & Produce Design System
Due to the complexity of the product and the interdependent relationship between features handled in different scrum pods, designers from different scrum pods gathered together for a two-week design spike to ensure we had a cohesive experience and consistent UI for the MVP release.
Team in design spike
Part of the MVP workflow on the wall
Connected On the MVP Workflows
To prevent pods’ designers from working in silos and losing sight of the bigger product picture, we reviewed each scrum pod’s high-level workflow to ensure we had a shared understanding of features and workflows outside of our own pods and where there were dependencies.
Analyzed Existing Design Patterns
We taped all the screens on the walls/doors, looked across different functional areas of the product, and analyzed current design patterns used in different scrum pods. This helped us identify similar use cases and where UI patterns and interactions can be standardized.
Initial design mockups on the wall
Discussed fonts and UI patterns on the whiteboard
Define Our Design System
Discussed and defined updated typography, color, UI patterns, and design guidelines, which later got incorporated into our design system.
IV. Release the MVP Product in the Market
12 months from when the program started, we released our MVP product. Our customers love the new look and the experience of the product. Even with all the complexity of business rules and the technical constraints, I was able to create a frictionless customer experience with adaptive product offerings that will satisfy different early-stage customers' banking needs.
Detailed design process is password-protected. Please reach out to learn more.
Testimony
“Clara is able to quickly grasp business requirements … and provide appropriate guidance to the product [team], development team, and other UX designers. She has been extremely effective. Using a design-thinking and user-centered approach she has improved payment user workflows and interactions.
Her turnaround time on designs is amazingly fast and the mock-ups/prototypes are clean. Her UX/UI expertise, strategic mindset, collaborative leadership, and creativity are showcased in every interaction the team has had with her. We are fortunate to have her on our bank’s Product team.”
— Lead Product Manager
Reflection
Being involved in both the design vision and implementation work provided valuable insights and a holistic view of the project lifecycle. It's especially gratifying to see the recognition of the design I led through the Aite Group's Impact Innovation Awards in the Customer Experience Category. This accolade serves as a testament to the project's success in achieving innovation within the financial industry, surpassing conventional standards through technology.
