SUMMARY

BoldBank — explore the new banking experience

BoldBank was a project as part of my Google UX Design Certificate. The brief was to design a balance transfer flow, so I designed BoldBank. BoldBank is an online bank that offers various banking services to its customers. The website focuses on showing an easy and intuitive way to transfer money.

Year
2022

Role
UX Design, UX Research
Product Strategy, Branding

Course
Google UX Design Certificate

PROBLEM

The Challenge

Young adults need to pay bills and transfer money in their daily life but are frustrated spending so much time with it. The challenge was to design a responsive website that solves the users pain points and allows users to quickly transfer money.

DISCOVER + DEFINE

Understanding the Users

I conducted user interviews and created empathy maps and personas to better understand the target users, their needs and pain points. I identified three main painpoints:

Painpoints

  1. Time-consuming balance transfer flows

  2. Complicated authentication process

  3. Information overload on banking websites

IDEATION & SKETCHING

Sketching Wireframes

I sketched out paper wireframes for each screen of my website, keeping the user pain points about time consumption, information overload and authentication in mind. The low-fidelity prototype connected the primary user flow of conducting balance transfers, so the prototype could be used in a usability study with users.

The low-fidelity prototype connected the primary user flow of conducting balance transfers, so the prototype could be used in a usability study with users.

ITERATING & TEST

Refining Designs

During the design process I conducted 2 usability studies in moderated testings, to figure out if the main user experience, conducting a balance transfer flow, is easy for users to do. Based on the findings in the usability studies I refined the design.

Redesigning Assistant & Transfer page

After the usability studies I designed the transfer page more compact, replaced the Assistant above the fold, and adjusted the Assistant’s buttons. This allowed users to find and use the Assistant easily and focus on transfers. Furthermore, I added an option to set the transfer as recurring.

Smoothing Navigation

To make navigation to balance transfer more intuitive for users, I added a “My Banking” navigation bar. The navigation bar is automatically selected when users are signed in at the homepage. Additionally, I added the option to got to balance transfer via account overview.

Replacing Buttons

Furthermore, I replaced all CTA buttons above the fold to smooth the whole balance transfer flow.

BRANDING & STYLE

Creating a Style Guide

For designing BoldBank’s mockups I created a style guide. Combining calm colors with the primary color violet to create BoldBank’s signature gradient came from wanting to help users feel focused while conveying trust and modernity. The homepage feels warm and welcoming enough to draw the user further in. The transfer pages’ design is very sleek to support a focused and fast user flow.

Responsive Website

I included considerations for additional screen sizes in my mockups based on my earlier wireframes. Because users use banking services from a variety of devices, I felt it was important to optimize the browsing experience for a range of device sizes, such as mobile and tablet so users have the smoothest experience possible.

SOLVING THE PAINPOINTS

Outcome

Saving time while doing balance transfers — Pain point 1

To save time I introduced an Assistant, an OCR application that pre-fills transfer information. Users can directly upload their bills or copy and paste payment details into the Assistant and the input screen will be filled automatically. Furthermore, I designed a function that rememberers payment details.

Simplifying the authentication process — Pain point 2

To avoid complicated confirmations with PIN or TAN to transfer money, I introduced Quick Transfer. Quick Transfer makes it possibles to send money to BoldBank’s contacts without any additional authentication.

Improving the experience on the banking website — Pain point 3

To avoid being stressed out by information overload, BoldBank’s design is clean and sleek that helps users to stay focused. Nevertheless, on the homepage users can find all important information.