Revamping Retail Banking
Backbase | Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Goal
To redesign the retail banking app’s dashboard and information architecture, addressing usability pain points and aligning the experience with client and leadership goals for improved customer satisfaction.
My role
As the UX research lead and design consultant, I collaborated with lead designers, engineers, and product managers.
Impact
Successfully launched a redesigned retail app experience, earning positive client feedback for its clean and intuitive design. 76% of clients preferred the revamped retail banking experience over the previous version.
Approach
We started by understanding user and client frustrations and expectations for retail mobile banking. Backbase provides solutions for over 150 global retail, business, and wealth banks, including NatWest, Raiffeisen, Standard Bank, and others. This project aimed to address key usability challenges, such as features being hidden behind a 'More' button, which led to client and user dissatisfaction.
We began by asking:
What do consumers expect to see when they first open the app?
How do users organize and prioritize their interactions with retail banking features?
Process
Research: Conducted an expert review and user interviews for baseline understanding. Pivoted to open and closed card sorts and tree tests to understand how users structured content, gathering both qualitative and quantitative insights. Conducted iterative user testing sessions to validate and refine the designs through concept testing. Received ongoing client feedback.
Design collaboration: Collaborated with lead and principal designers by providing design input and direction, and had productive and ongoing conversations with engineers for implementation.
Impactful implementation: Replicated this research process for the web experience and collaborated with the Senior UX Researcher in Business to conduct similar tests, ensuring alignment between the Business and Retail products.
Findings to design: examples
Impact
Successfully launched a new Retail app experience, receiving positive client feedback for its clean, intuitive structure. 76% of Retail clients favored the revamped Retail app experience over the old one.
Fostered enhanced cross-functional collaboration between Retail and Business departments, leading to smoother development and faster decision-making.
Initiated a new research repository project to centralize and organize all gathered insights, driving continuous improvement and alignment across teams.
This project not only transformed the retail banking experience but also set new standards for cross-team collaboration and user-centered design at Backbase. Looking forward, I aim to continue leading projects that fuse creativity with insights to drive impactful user experiences.