Smart, Simple, Helpful Banking

In 2018 our personal banking customers were fed up with the app – had an abysmal 1.6 stars in the app stores. I was tasked with leading the design efforts for two completely new native experiences (iOS and Android) while focusing on a singular goal: fix the basics.

The result? App store ratings increased from 1.6 stars to 4.5 stars and mobile engagement increased from 31% to 44%.

Project Summary

ATB is a financial institution servicing Albertans with over 800K personal & business banking customers (including 200K mobile app users).

Roles: Program Lead (UX), Individual Contributor Team Size: 20+ (Design, QA, Product, Technology) Timeline: 18 months

What People Are Saying

“This update looks so easy to work with and feels more modern than ever before.”

— App Store Rating

“I enjoy the ease of using the app. Very user friendly and easy to navigate through and monitor your accounts.”

— App Store Rating

A Legacy of Issues

The legacy app’s poor ratings were largely attributed to:

  • performance - the universal app in a web wrapper was cumbersome, slow and buggy

  • unintuitive design - lacked clear navigation with primary actions obfuscated beneath a floating action button that was often misinterpreted

Discovery

Contextual Interviews

Conducted by our Research team, these helped refine the vision and approach.

Treejack & Concept Testing

A treejack study helped us refine the information architecture while we brought in existing customers for some concept testing on an early homescreen iteration.

Structuring The Work: Leveraging Cross-Platform Insights

Our first delivery to the organization was within the first 3 months of development so to increase our design efficiency I set up some constraints:

  • design would adhere to HIG and Material guidelines to expedite decisions

  • we would dedicate 1 designer to Android and one to iOS (I would float between platforms), allowing us to tackle two problems simultaneously

  • Research would test each solution concurrently with those insights being applied to the other platform in a rapid design cycle

Practicing Inclusive Design

Another benefit of native app builds are all the accessibility benefits that the platform offers. We had defined inclusivity as a pillar of our approach and to achieve this, I:

  • used tools to identify violations (accessibility inspector & accessibility scanner)

  • prioritized issues based on WCAG’s AA ratings and worked with other leads to identify fixes

Web Is Born

After 6 months of design & development work on the mobile apps, the web redesign project kicked off, doubling our design team. As a result, I had to:

  • increase efforts to ensure consistency with weekly touchpoints that included all designers & researchers

  • ensure that any research findings were communicated to all designers to ensure applicable findings were implemented

  • develop a cross-platform strategy centred on continuity & consistency, accounting for handoff between platforms

In addition to measuring mobile engagement & app store reviews, the overall success of the Personal Banking re-platforming can be measured by:

  • Reduction in call centre volumes

    • Forgot password was a top driver

  • System Usability Scale (SUS)

  • Reduced time on task for key actions such as: transfers, bill pays, payee management

Outcomes