Frustrated with your bank app?
I am, and this is what it led me to.
Banking in India isn’t the most intuitive of processes, especially for the layperson whose only goal is to transfer money from one account to another. The supposedly ‘convenient’ mobile apps do less terms of alleviating the users’ fears. On the other hand, third party apps like PayTM & Google Pay are rendering the banking apps obsolete.
Services related to personal banking have also evolved — apps like Walnut and ET Money help manage money efficiently. They record transactions and give the user meaningful data points. Challenger Banks like Simple have been hugely successful in helping users achieve their saving goals.
Traditional Banks are entirely capable of providing all these services but they have not kept up with the experience that the new services provide.
The project analyses the current scenario of banks and money in India, understands what the user needs and creates more intuitive flows and tailored value additions.
The broad goal of the project was to create an app that has a fighting chance against the multitude of third party apps that have come up and bring the experience of the bank app to the level set by the apps that we are used to.
User Research
The research included interviews with users from different walks of life and different phases in their lives. The discussions were based on their use of banking apps and other financial apps, their money management methods.
The inferences taken from these interviews have been condensed into three personas:
- Business owner
- Salaried employee
- First time user of mobile banking
However, the exercise for creating personas was helpful mostly for macro level ideation as the user base for the project was not a niche group.
Secondary Research
This phase involved going through the multitude of fin tech applications available to the masses. I used and analysed multiple bank applications, different money management apps and looked at other banking models like Challenger Banks.
Goals
The app and flows have been designed for the average user with a realistic number of accounts.
The redesign was approached keeping the following principles in mind
To re-imagine the basic flows
In the current system, the flows are built around the product or the service. The aim was to rebuild the flows around the user and the context the flow is being accessed.
Almost all aspects of our lives are on the digital platform now and they have set high benchmarks in regard to the experience that they provide. Among them, the social aspect is one that stands out by making complex interactions very simple for the user and the user strives to achieve the same level of ease in other tasks too.
To create an ecosystem for the bank
Companies like Google and Facebook have created an ecosystem around us such that at many times, we don’t realise our interactions with them and the value that they add to our digital experience. So we thought about how we could do the same with banks. Why can’t the bank be at the forefront of financial decisions and transactions in our daily life, and improve our experience in that regard?
Ideating & Mapping Flows
This exercise helped in identifying problems at a micro level in the different flows that the user will go through on the app. Each step step was listed down along with problems that can be encountered and possible solutions for them.
Wireframes
The ideas were translated into digital wireframes and quick prototypes were created to test them out and get a feel of the flows. The flows were iterated on multiple times and were tested by creating quick wireframes.
UI Design
Following are principles that were determined for the look of the app -
Trust
The app can not have an aesthetic which is inspired by the fads that are in trend. The look of the app had to be such that it can gain the trust of the user. This would mean keeping elements like gradients, excessive use of drop shadows, multiple colors or brutalist design trends at bay.
Ease in Use
The app will be used by people of all ages and different levels of ease with technology, so the UI needs to be clean and have clearly defined primary and secondary CTAs. The UI should also be thoroughly tested for usability.
Discover-ability
Prominent type hierarchy and use of colours to bring focus to the necessary actions to create a guided flow for the users. This entails the use of use of different font weights, sizes and opacity to create a visual hierarchy.
Final flows
Transferring Money:
“The user doesn’t really care about the payment method as long as the money gets transferred”
In the current flow, the user gets bombarded with different types of payments methods in the first step of the process. And when a user comes to the the app to transfer money - they are thinking mostly of ‘whom to transfer the money to?’ and ‘how much money to transfer’ rather than ’which payment method should I user to transfer the money?’
The proposed app could automatically suggest the method of payment based on the beneficiary selected and the amount entered instead of having the user select it first.
Checking Account Balance:
This is one of the most common reasons for a user to open the app. This infers that the current balance be displayed on the first screen that open up on the app.
The basic account balance for multiple accounts is displayed on the home screen and statistics related to the account balance like monthly spends and average monthly spends are shown in the details screen.
Checking Previous Transactions:
Checking if a transaction went through or accessing its reference number or other details are some of the common use cases in which a user wants to access his transaction history. For this, instead of having the user to log in to the app which is an added effort, the proposed app will congregate the SMS that the phone has received and show the user the relevant details before having to login.
The app will also show a detail of all transactions on logging in.
Paying Bills and Credit Card Statements:
By tracking the transactions that the user frequently makes, the bank can make recommendations to set recurring transactions.
In the current banking apps, bills get paid automatically by the app without intimating the user. This reduces the number of users who want to use the bill payments feature. The autopay feature has been replaced by an ‘Approve Transactions’ option where the users will get a notification through which they can make the payment through the click of a button.
Banking Ecosystem
Autofill Card Details:
Right now, whenever a user reaches a card payment screen for the first time, they have to either remember a whole 16 digit number or find their card and fill in the details. If the app is installed on the phone, why can't it figure out that a payment related screen has been reached, and pre-populate all the details for you?
If the user has multiple cards saved, it can ask to set one as the default, but then also give them the option to change it from a popup
Notifications:
Traditional banks have multiple tie-ups with restaurants and stores in big cities where you can avail benefits. If the waiter or salesperson informs you about the offer, then you’re in luck but in case they don’t - the app can detect the user’s location and send notifications about ongoing offers in a restaurant, mall or store.
The app will track the user’s cash withdrawals and will point the user to the nearest ATM by predicting when the user might need to replenish cash.
Bank Widget:
For users who want immediate and frequent access to the bank application, a modular widget (4x1 or 4x3) can be placed on the home screen of their phone.
In Conclusion
The project was intense and getting the minute details right in the flows for systems that were data intensive was challenging and rewarding as well when the pieces fit together right. I was personally quite motivated to work on a banking application and I got rich feedback from all the people around me during the ideation and iterations as they were all potential (and frustrated) users.
In retrospect I realize that I might have benefited more by deviating from using personas to summarize my user research. Processes like affinity mapping might could have been an option that worked.
Also, some of the ideas developed for promoting a bank’s ‘Ecosystem’ are quite experimental and would require in depth research on security regulations to be taken forward.
Thank you for reading!
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I undertook this research project as a small part of my 4 month internship at Beard Design as a UI/UX intern. It was completed under the guidance of Aakash Rodrigues (Web Team Head) & Abhisek Sarda (Founder).
