The most engaging financial software
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will be big. Soon. Apple, Google, Facebook, Nintendo and companies of all sizes are working hard on these new technologies. This can be the next big thing in the tech world after the invasion of smartphones.
Why is VR different?
If somebody tries out the VR experience he will feel the difference immediately. It is extremely immersive. You land in a completely new world and you want to explore it. It also grabs the user’s attention instantly. Not just a part of it, but 100%. Which is really singular in our totally distracted world.
It’s worthwhile taking a glance at the Gartner Hype Cycle (2017). As you can see VR is already over the inflated expectations and disillusion phase. Moreover for VR Gartner predicts a bright future in the next 2–5 years. I’m not that optimistic if we talk about mass adaptation due to the mandatory hardware requirements. Nonetheless, I truly believe VR will not only change how we play video games, but also the way we work or how we do things like managing our money.
Our project
We thought that this is the perfect time to create our first VR banking concept and see what this new technology can add to the banking experience.
This new platform was completely greenfield for us and we faced plenty of new and unknown challenges. It’s totally different from the desktop or mobile user interfaces since you can look around anywhere and there is a depth of space. We had to solve how you can interact within the VR. It’s really important what you put in the field of view and what you can see only with moving your head. Nowadays it is quite easy to design a new desktop site or mobile app as lots of research and experience are available and there are well-known patterns which you can follow to help your users when they visit your product and everything is unknown for them.
There are some VR financial concepts which try to copy the real world. But why would you be interested in a copy of the world? We believe people desire something new, something better. We didn’t want to limit ourselves to a specific environment. That is why we picked the pop-up book concept in the end. Every new page can be something really different and can open up a new world for you. A pop-up book is also perfect for storytelling which supports our endeavour to provide actionable insights for the customers.
This was an exciting project since this was the first time that our financial assistant made an actual, or rather virtual, appearance. The idea was that you can quickly view the most important information and the assistant would guide you through the current topics. It gives you tips, hints and actionable insights and helps you to manage your money more wisely. In fact the assistant is your new financial advisor who will always be with you.
Conclusion
Predicting the future is hard, even for the experts. Nevertheless you have to be open to the future technologies since it can change the current status quo. Be a bit less skeptical than Steve Ballmer was about the new smartphone era:
“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.” — Steve Ballmer, 2007
We really hope that the traditional banking experience will be replaced sooner or later and managing your money will be a more joyful experience and a less stressful moment. The technology needs about 3–5 years and a technological leap to really take off, but virtual reality can be a really good platform for this purpose.
The VR experience could be the next level in user communication and could change banking forever. We can promise you that this will be one of the most engaging financial software ever.
Reach out if you want to be included in the evolution of our concept.
