Pocket Bank
Banking app
Pocket Bank is a secure banking app that offers to take control of user’s finances, featuring intuitive transaction management and clear spending overviews. Users can connect with banking experts via secure in-app chat for real time support and quick answers. Their personal and card details are protected with advanced encryption in a secure digital vault.
Client
Personal Project
To provide a secure and User-friendly mobile banking experience that empowers the users to easily manage finances, access expert support, and protect their data.
Goal
UX Researcher
UX/UI Designer
Role
Challenge
Design a simple and secure personal financial management mobile app that aims to overcome the complexities of traditional banking by offering intuitive tools, readily available expert support, and robust data protection, all within a user-friendly app.
Solution
Users needs a comprehensive solution within a single app that offers simple transaction management and gives a clear spending overview for easy budget tracking, coupled with secure in-app chat for direct access to expert support. PocketBank provides enhanced security measures to keep personal and financial data secure, with additional security measures.
The Design Process
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a competitive analysis with banks like Chase and Capital One to learn what they were doing right, what needs improvement, or things they were not doing.
Chase and Capital One bank apps are well-established within their customer groups. These are the ones with a fresher and more modern design, with the best user-center approach.
User Interviews & Survey
With past banking trends and systems with lengthy procedures, users are looking for something new, personalized, and effortless to aid them with their banking.
User feedback and opinions gathered through interviews and surveys were organized into categories on an affinity map to inform design improvements by understanding user needs and expectations.
Five key insights were extracted from the Affinity map. These are listed below with the supporting quotes from the user research:
User Persona
Following user research, a user persona was created based on the insights gathered. This personas helped me understand user’s diverse needs and preferences to have a mobile banking experience that balances the functionality with consistent layout, enabling them to achieve their financial goals with ease and confidence.
Journey Map
To better understand Alex’s perspective, a user journey map was created to visualize each step a user takes when interacting with the product. This timeline documented user actions, potential emotional responses, and anticipated pain points. By mapping the entire user journey, key areas were identified for improvement, resulting in a more positive and seamless user experience.
User Flows
The next step was to create a visual representation of the path a user will take through Pocket Bank to complete a specific task, essentially mapping out user’s journey from the initial interaction to the final action, that allowed me to understand and optimize the user experience by identifying potential roadblocks and improving navigation flow.
Wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes were created to rapidly visualize the core user flow, emphasizing the use of essential elements and interactions necessary for a user to accomplish their goals more efficiently.
These were then refined into Mid-fidelity wireframes, that served a crucial bridge between low-fidelity conceptualization and high-fidelity refinement, ensuring a solid foundation for a user-centered design.
Next steps
Invest more time in research to create prototypes.
Design straightforward and intuitive screens for users to follow the onboarding.
Perform usability testing to collect feedback that will help validate the improvements and ensure a smooth, secure, and user-friendly experience.
With time, I would like to refine the look of the screens to give a more approachable and modern feel to the app.
My learnings
Designing a banking app gave me an understanding to consider users with different levels of digital literacy and financial understanding.
The design process helped in:
• Thorough thinking of the concept.
• Learning to analyze and create the user flow for the task.
• Independently exploring and refining design concepts to proactively identify and solve potential problems.