This was a design challenge to find current issues within a mobile app of our choosing. Working in a team of 3, we decided to take up the challenge to redesign something from the DBS online banking app. In this team project, I was involved in providing Competitor Site Heuristic Evaluation, some of the User Research process, and contributed to UI prototyping.

This project is based on a concept and was a means to discover and challenge ourselves. Work and ideas here are purely the views of our team.

The Challenge

Within a 2-week timeframe, my team of 3 had to identify problems or opportunities within an existing mobile application. Choosing the DBS banking mobile app was naturally one of our top choices as we wanted were seeking for a bit of a challenge, as well as to grow out of our comfort zones. 

 Our goal ultimately was to enhance the user experience of the app. This required us to be open-minded and be willing to ask questions and explore. 

The Approach

In the project timeline of 2 weeks, my group members and I organised the project into 3 phases: Research, Analyse, and Prototype

The Research Phase

Every great product relies on being in perfect tandem with the goals of both business and customer. The research phase aimed to find the objectives of DBS, the purpose and use of the app (for both bank and customer), as well as the opinions of the customers. 

Understanding how users use the app

To get to know how DBS customers were using the application, we employed several qualitative research methods. Using the method of a Task Analysis, we got users to rate the top use cases of the application from the most to the least used. Additionally, we had also interviewed users one to one and enquired about what their thoughts and pain points were. Lastly, we had observed how users are using the current application with a Usability test.

Synthesising the research done so far, we have identified 2 main categories of banking usage: General Online Banking, and Credit Cards. 

The Analyse Phase

Persona Creation

Encouraging empathy and to align the different goals of business and user, we created two personas for this project. The Personas represented the two distinct categories of app usage. Vanessa, a young business owner, uses the app for General banking needs, while Matthew, an Account Manager, focuses on features that are related to Credit Card Use.

Project Focus

For this project, we focused on the Matthew persona as the characteristics and behaviors were better aligned with the business goals of DBS. The Matthew persona would also be the higher spender on credit cards. 

The creation of a Customer Journey map allowed us to further understand the overall experience of the user within the various stages of their journey within the ibanking app. It also allowed us to propose possible improvements at certain points of the journey.

Looking at the Customer Journey Map, we prioritized the section of the app that had Credit Card details. This included the viewing of transaction history and the payment of credit card bills. 

Top issues we discovered in the User Research process 

• Users wanted to have quick access to the credit cards they own in the app.

• Users wanted to be able to easily view their credit card(s) transaction history and bills from the Post-login screen

• Users wanted to be able to pay their credit card bills with other accounts they own

Retaining the existing UI and design style as much as possible, we combined the sketches we have made and transitioned from low-fi to a high-fi interpretation using collaborative tools like Figma and designing in Sketch app.

 Two different prototypes were created to test User Interface styles.

Prototype Validation

 Our team ran a simple A/B testing procedure on the two different prototypes we created. A simple post-test survey was created for users to fill out after each testing session to gauge the performance of the prototypes.

The Outcome

The final prototype created had achieved the following goals that we had planned for:

1. Reducing the number of steps users had to make to view Credit cards

2. Allowing users to easily view details about the credit cards

Organised the transaction history as well as how much the credit card bills are.

3. Simplifying the Payment procedure

Allowing the payment of Credit Card bills from different accounts under the customer.

This was a fun collaboration with Ridzwan Haron and Koh Khai Liang. To see the full process of the project and my thoughts head on over to my Medium post.