In this second exercise, we have to create a feature that allows paying with the app when you’re travelling abroad. Using the Design Thinking methodology.
First thing first
The Problem
Whole Bank detected that the conventional Credit/Debit System shows big inconveniences for traveling customers.
Because when traveling, a lot of things may happen:
- Customers may lose their cards
- Some shops don’t allow credit/debit card payments
- Physical cards are susceptible to damage. Cards’ chips, magnetic bands, and contactless technology can deteriorate during the trip
The idea is to give customers access to a payment feature that they can use exclusively when they travel, so instead of using their cards, they can use the app on their mobile devices.
Design Thinking…?
“Design thinking is a process for creative problem solving.” — Coe Leta Stafford, Managing Director IDEO U
The core of Design Thinking is solving complex problems and discovering new opportunities, by devising desirable solutions for clients/users. It’s about simple mindset shifts or ways of asking questions differently (a new way to look at problems).
Why is Design Thinking so important?
- It reduces the risk associated with launching new ideas.
- It helps organizations learn faster.
- It generates solutions that are innovative, not just incremental.
The Design Thinking methodology
Design thinking suggests that for creating innovative, valuable products or ideas, you need to follow 5 steps:
Starting
Empathise
To empathise we need to know about the experiences of the customers, so the first step is to prepare an interview for users that have traveled and experienced using their Debit/Credit Card abroad.
The questions selected were:
- Do you like traveling? How much often do you travel? (This first question has the purpose of getting confidence with the person interviewed)
- How do you pay things when you’re travelling abroad? Why? What’s your experience?
- Have you ever experienced any troubles whith your credit card while travelling? (e.g lost card, some shops not allowing cards, card not working due to damage…)
- Have you ever used your smartphone to pay? Why?
- (If the previous answer was yes:) What problems did you find using this payment method?
- What kind of payment method do you think the easiest when you’re travelling abroad?
Define
Once I made the interviews, I need to identify their needs in order to define a problem statement, focusing on the user’s viewpoint.
To organize the information obtained, I used the affinity map tool, so I could see as a big picture all the problems, and group and priorize them.
If you don’t know about this tool, this are the benefits of using it:
- Understand what is most important from the data collected.
- Tame complexity.
- Identify connections and themes.
- Create hierarchies.
- Identify what factors to focus on that will support the most successful design possible from a customer’s perspective.
(In case you did’t know this tool, I made it with https://realtimeboard.com/)
Ideate
Now it’s time to bring up with the ideas!
I used brainstorming to generate some solutions in order to find the best ones to the founded problems.
Prototype
Once I decided how my feature will work, I needed to build a prototype so I could see how it would look and work.
The design has to be simple and easy, so everyone can use it in a few clicks.
Now the only thing left is to have some people test it!
