Retail Banking

Domain - Retail Banking

https://www.absa.co.za/personal/

Duration: 18 Months

Absa Group Limited (ABGL) (formerly Barclays Africa Group Limited), and originally Amalgamated Banks of South Africa, is a South African based financial services group, offering personal and business banking, credit cards, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management, as well as bancassurance.

Business Brief

Support ABSA in their digital transformation journey for various digital channels with the best and most up-to-date UX practices & trends.

Activities Covered

UX Strategy map

Conducting UX research

Stakeholder interviews

Establishing key audiences

Building personas

Creating user journeys

Creating Information Architecture - Card sorting

Creating experience maps

Low-fidelity prototypes

Creating wireframes

Mentoring for High fidelity visual mockups

Mentoring for creating DSP pattern library

My Design Process

1. Understanding culture and moods of SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa being a new region to work for, it was very essential for me to study a bit about People, Culture and their mindset overall. A direct talk to my peers, colleagues based in SA and my usual desk research helped me compile ‘A Glimpse of Africa’.

2. Setting goals and objectives

It’s better to put everything down on paper. Clearly defined objective and goal is the guiding line for project’s development.

What this website and app is all about
Business term - 'Digital sales platform' is a bigger umbrella to sell all ABSA products under one roof. For regular customers it’s nothing but a platform where they can obtain their banking needs.

What are the goals of Digital Sales Platform
Make customer onboarding easy for all ABSA Transactional and Saving Products. Optimize UX to achieve this goal in 7- 10 mins in order to acquire new customer base. The consumer should be able to connect to the bank virtually for their basic financial needs without any assistance.

Who are the users of this portal
Basically anyone ( Male, Female, Children ) who has bank account and financial needs. This further categorised under ‘ Existing customers’, ‘New to Bank customers’, ‘Students’.

3. Discussions and interviews (Research)

For me, it’s an ice breaking opportunity to connect with the Users, their needs, understand their pain points while interacting with technology and in physical space in general.

The discussion were captured in a form of diary notes and audio.

4. Building persona (Analysing research data)

Building persona helps identify different user groups along with their demographics, needs, motivation & pain points. The short story of his/her daily routine helps jotting the opportunities for a product/service.

Who are they?

- Existing customer, New to Bank customer, Younger customer base

- Age: 25-40 and 18-24

- Gender: Male and Female

- Family: Single/Married

- Education: Graduate

How do they access information?

- Word of mouth - Friends, Family, Peers

- Media - Newspaper, Internet, Commercials

- Direct Marketing, Promotional activities

What are their goals?

- Simplified and easy process to set up a bank account

- Receive quick feedback on application status

- Be able to reach out to the bank without branch visit

Pain points

- Time consuming process to obtain bank account

- Document submission in the physical branch

- Additional banking costs is the concern for many

Motivation

- Be financially independant

- Own a bank account for quick and easy transactions

- Be up to date with latest account transactions

- Be able to receive and make money transfers easily

5. Creating experience map

Journey mapping is a process that provides a holistic view of the customer experience by uncovering moments of both frustration and delight throughout a series of interactions.

User task - Open a new savings account with a bank

6. Creating navigation system

IA describes the different content pieces on the site and the relationship between them. It is an important step of the user centred process as it ensures the content is placed where users would expect to see.

White-boarding & Card sorting

7. User scenarios, rapid prototyping & wireframes

A wireframe specifically focuses interaction flow, functionalities available, prioritisation of content and intended behaviours. It gives you the wholesome picture of how the product is shaping up which gives early scope for any improvements in terms of UX

8. Detailed design mockup

Visual design is what users see ultimately on the screen to perceive information. It’s actually a sub discipline within the UX process, contributing to UI & information design.

9. Creating pattern library

The style guide and component library is created to make sure consistency across all product lines.

10. Conducting usability test & iterations

In order to make good decision about both design and implementation you need data about how people use designs and the only way of gathering this data is through usability testing.

Remote tests were conducted with South African users on the new interface to validate usability aspect. The meetings were recorded in WebEX and Quicktime with user's consent.

Gureilla testing with Barclays employees from different business verticals