Design in Finance
Design in Finance has never been as hot as it’s been in 2018. The finance industry — in particular the FinTech’s — has incorporated design as a key part of their overall strategy. User experience (UX) is more important than ever, and rightly so. Customer expectations are rapidly shifting and the ways in which we interact with brands is different to before.
“If you look at the disruptors of the industry, their focus on user experience has been a critical competitive advantage”
Anne Pascual, Design Director at IDEO
This is good news for all of us creative professionals, as we now have a significantly bigger influence in businesses. Creating the right product for your customer is not always as simple as it sounds and Financial Services may not be the sexiest sector, but it’s a sector which our design team here at Radical is passionate about and everyday we strive to design experiences that bring ease and joy to customers.
So you may be wondering why we love it so much?
It’s rewarding to design for people and industries that are not traditionally design-focused and finance is definitely one of those. Financial products and services are used by billions of people all over the world, and so it’s important to us that we design tools that enhance people’s lives and address everyday, very real problems. It’s also a subject which some people feel intimidated by; the challenge is how can we help people make better financial decisions?
Designers today, in the financial sector, face some of the biggest challenges….
Having empathy and earning trust through design. Consumers often don’t trust their bank, but the best thing we can do is show them that what we’re offering is designed specifically for them. Prove to customers and clients that we’re listening to them and that we’re addressing their pain points, which in turn, will develop into trust.
To help achieve this, try out one our favourite activities: Jobs, pains and gains.
In a Jobs, pains and gains exercise you begin by listing out what jobs your customer has to do, along with their pains — what gets in the way of the customer’s jobs. Then their gains — goals in their life, things that make them happy. This really helps us understand the customer. You then map these with some options which potentially address the job-to-be done and translate these ideas into a clearly defined product/service that creates gain and relieves pain.
Being innovative in a heavily regulated industry — how to embrace constraints and regulations. For us to be innovative, we have to involve legal and compliance partners early in the design process. What’s worked for us has been creating a sense of partnership and collaboration with them early on in the process. We’ve seen great value in bringing these partners into the room with us from the get go, collaborating on crafting the design together.
Traditional banks often have huge legacy systems which come with a lot of constraints and yet Financial Institutions must adapt if they want to survive. One of the most efficient ways to do this is to leverage the FinTech industry. FinTech solutions that can be bolted onto the legacy systems without straining the integrations. This has been a key trend for 2018 and we’ve been lucky enough to work with some exciting projects in which we see Financial Institutions and FinTech’s partnering on some exciting new propositions (more on that in the new year).
Or another option is to ‘create a new box’, creating a stand-alone unit or team — a new box, if you will — is the key to successful disruption and leads to better results: greater speed, better focus, and increased market penetration.
Check out what our founder, Ian, has to say on this matter
Competing with new startup banks. When a new startup or challenger emerges, they often have compelling ideas which grab the market’s attention. This can be seen in two ways, negatively or positively. We’re loving the positive response in which Jesse Lewis (Global Head of UX & UI Design at HSBC) gave when answering this question in an InVision talk…
“A precedent has been set by your neighbour, and these startups, these banks do that for us.”
Hear, hear 👏. If this happens, let this be a prompt to look closely at your own services and improve them by taking the activities of new startup banks as inspiration for your own innovation. The market is full of inspiration, be inspired and make it your own.
Whether designing for a traditional bank, a FinTech start up, for retail or for business customers, some of the biggest challenges remain the same. The digital revolution can empower people to make the most of their money and here at Radical we’re passionate about doing so. But success depends on more than technologies or unbundling financial products — companies must change the way they engage with customers.
With users at the heart of everything we do, Radical helps businesses innovate new financial products and services aligning with the things that matter the most. Fancy hearing more? Get in touch with us and change the way you create.
Or if you’re a designer and are looking for some financial design inspiration check out some of InVisions Design + Finance talks and events.
by Michelle Cooper, Design Director. Radical Company
