Alex Kreger, UX Strategist & Founder of UX design agency UXDA, that makes banking & Fintech brands loved with the Financial UX methodology.
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Almost every financial institution invests a lot of effort and money into experience design, as this ensures a competitive advantage in the digital age. Unfortunately, sometimes results are pitiful.
For example, a large retail bank redesigned its 6-year-old app with a team of user experience (UX) designers. Its App Store rating decreased from four to two stars. What could be the reasons behind such a bad outcome?
1. Not Connected To Your Brand
It's not enough to replicate the design of another nice-looking banking app to ensure a great quality UX. Behind every digital transformation success, there are a number of unique factors that impact the customer experience. User interface design is only one of those.
For a digital product to succeed, it's crucial to take into account your brand uniqueness, customer expectations and cutting-edge technology. To turn your digital service into a long-term competitive advantage, conduct user research and execute a tailor-made UX engineering.
2. Curse Of Knowledge
When someone is communicating with others, believing that they would have the exact same context to perfectly understand what the other is saying is called a cognitive bias. In many cases, the same happens when finance professionals create a digital service that they believe is easy and pleasant to use, while customers are confused by its complexity.
To architect the best possible banking UX, speak the customers' language and become their ally. You can achieve it through empathy, in-depth knowledge of psychology, UX research, usability testing and a user-centered business mindset.
3. False Hopes
There's no doubt about the impact of UX in creating successful digital products. However, it's faulty to assume that outstanding UX is the only element FIs need to gain success.
Even digital products with great UX are still subject to market rules and multiple business factors, like the business model, strategy, product's market introduction, the CX of support and competitors' offers. Managing all of these aspects with the right allocation of responsibility allows room for digital product success.
4. Lack Of Financial UX Expertise
Quite often, FI executives outsource UX designers wrongly, hoping that they'll be able to create a great app design in a few months. However, the success of a financial app depends not only on the designer's skills but also, most importantly, on an in-depth understanding of the specifics of financial products, business strategy, marketing, psychology, human behavior and digital technology.
Ensure your in-house or outsourced team has a proper financial UX design methodology in place that requires expertise in financial business analysis, financial UX research, financial UX architecture and financial UX strategy.
5. Funds Deficit
There are still companies that perceive UX only as a modern visual design under a marketing or product department, receiving a small fraction of the budget. The truth is that business success relies on digital channels, and, accordingly, digital UX should be top priority.
To create a strong digital advantage, prioritize UX design in strategy, processes, team and budgeting. It doesn't mean you need huge funding but a cultural transformation. Switching from pushy sales approaches to customer-centricity can lead to disruptive products that delight users, bringing great demand and loyalty.
6. No Strategic Context
Sometimes the financial industry tends to perceive UX designers as artists that create buttons. In reality, financial UX design experts research all related contexts to creating the digital product and identify bottlenecks to find appropriate solutions.
For many businesses, it's still not easy to define customer context. There are companies that aren't aware of why their customers use their service, and they don't check product reviews in the App Store or social media, even though these are the main channels of consumption.
7. Bewitched By Innovation
In the rush for an outstanding competitive advantage, many banks seek innovative technologies that will attract users, but their existing digital solutions are far from perfect and full of friction that confuses users. A complex, new innovation is hard to integrate when there are multiple issues with delivering good UX through existing products.
Don't reinvent the wheel. The best digital innovation is not a new technology but a solution that takes the customer value to the next level. This requires an easy-to-use service to gain a powerful competitive advantage.
8. Ignoring Irrationality
Data-driven design is an extremely powerful approach. The opportunity to statistically justify and measure the design outcome is very promising, especially in banking, financial services and insurance. The con could be the responsibility shift from UX designers to data.
Unfortunately, data can't take into account user behavior and emotional context that's variable and changes with time. Henry Ford is often quoted saying, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." Customer behavior, in general, is affected by human irrationality, which is why data provides only interpretations, not concrete answers.
9. Over-Featuring
There's a common misconception among FIs: The more functions we provide, the better the user satisfaction. Actually, it's quite the opposite. When customers are faced with confusing options, this leads to decision paralysis, causing the customer to quit without taking action.
Research the exact customer needs and tailor the service around them, providing a clear and intuitive experience.
10. Underestimating Emotions
For years, banking has been perceived as a very serious institution. The world is changing, and people seek an emotional and personal connection to their services. Banking is no exception. Humans are emotional beings by nature and will demand products that evoke positive emotions.
Don't be afraid to create an emotional experience for the users. Think about the possibilities to integrate personalization, gaming and different design elements that cause positive emotions and enrich the financial experience.
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