ThinkBank

Being to establish a long-term trust through social validation for newcomers to get banking information.

Our design sprint Project Goal

Duration

4 Days

Client

ThinkBank by BMO Financial Group

The Breif

The interactive microsite was created during a week-long design sprint hosted by BrainStation and BMO Financial Group. We were given the design challenge of creating a web or mobile microsite design to help newcomers open a bank account for ‘ThinkBank’, a substitute brand given to us by the BMO Design team. We were provided with a set of personas to choose from as well as the branding guidelines (logo, font, icons, colour palette, subject illustrations). My team and I had 4 days to research, conduct user interviews, prototype, and complete usability testing with iterations.

Branding Guidelines

Colour Palette

Typography

Illustrations: Arginalia Artifficial Set

The Problem

Moving to Canada can be both a daunting and exciting time. There is so much to prepare. Out of everything on the list, opening a bank account can be challenging. A site that makes the user feel confident. Safe and secure about banking, but more importantly makes them feel excited about their new life in Canada.

The business goal is to drive increased online sales of the ThinkBank (BMO) by open checking account and the ThinkBank Mastercard.

  • Transferring funds from previous country to Canada and Building their Credit.
  • Help users make appointments with financials planners once they arrive in Canada.
  • Promoting cross-sales for various banking products such as Mortgages etc.

Day 1: Map

Choose the target, set a goal, interview users, Secondary Research

Research findings

300,000 newcomers arrive in Canada each year. According to an article from CBC, they represent 22% of the population in Canada.

As newcomers, starting over in a new country is not easy. You need to get familiar with a lot of matters such as Banking.

Based on our research, the main factors for choosing a bank are the quality of the service, the rates, the location, and recommendations from friends.

We’ve also learned that Trust was a key component when it comes to banking. As a newcomer to Canada, the lack of trust and information is the biggest barrier to starting a financial journey.

Interviews

We interviewed 6 participants age from 23-35 who emigrated to Canada and were newcomers at one point (from the Philippines, France, China and Latin America). Based on their answers, we were able to draw five valuable insight below:
  • Newcomers are looking for empathy in a financial advisor
  • They want to trust their bank
  • They want someone who speaks their language
  • They do online banking a lot on their phone for convenience
  • They lack of information about products and services
After setting the common goal, each member comes up with different HMW questions based on each stage of the journey map.
After voting by each team member and BMO reps. The final HMW question is:
How might we create trust through social validation for newcomers to get banking information?

Persona

Our chosen persona is Clarke and Kylin, who arrived in Canada a few days ago. They are looking to find financial information and assistance to open a banking account. They are not fluent in English and know nothing about banking in Canada; they also don’t trust financial institutions. They spend a lot of time outside. Therefore, they use their phones a lot to do research.
Storyboard

Experience Map

Day 2: Sketch

competing solutions, decide the best options

Ideation

We generated possible solutions on paper by gathering key information, doodling rough solutions, and trying rapid variations. The finished sketches were hung on the whiteboard, the team observed the solutions in silence and marked any interesting ideas with dots. The BMO reps chose the solution that was of interest to them.

Solution

The final solution provided credit score information to newcomer users based on their financial goals. Users are able to identify gaps between their real credit score and ideal credit score. This platform creates an online community for sharing information and resources. Our hope is to generate ThinkBank user testimonials and branding with customers from the same country.

Day 3: Build

build a realistic prototype

Prototype

After we got the final solutions and everyone had a clear direction, the digital prototype started.

Version #1

Users click the microsite portal and start with three quizzes to provide necessary information about ThinkBank.

The next step is to choose the country of origin, language, set financial goals, and see how many credit scores needed to achieve users’ goals — followed by user testimonials from people who came from the same country. They also can chat with an online advisor for more information.

Version #2

Based on version 1, we created a status bar to visual show users each step of this process. Users can move backward or forward.

Day 4: Test

build a realistic prototype

Usability Testing

We tested our prototype with other groups and got some feedback. Below are three criterias where we received major feedback, we spent the rest of evening refining our prototype

Heuristics
For the interactive pages, some of the users found them to be unintuitive due to labelling or sizing of fonts.

Hierarchy
Info architecture for the advisor page was confusing because the listed products under the testimonial profiles looked like clickable CTA buttons.

Accessibility
Our microsite is WACG-ADA compliant for users.

  • The content accessible with keyboard only
  • Contrast, font and colours
  • Audio accessible

Day 5: Present

present the final idea to ThinkBank

Version #3

The microsite is a mobile website, we combined all the screens, refined the layout and content. Our main KPI is to provide newcomer users with useful information and lead them to make an appointment with ThinkBank. We deleted the “talking with an online advisor” section because it is unnecessary for our task flow.

Next Step

  • More usability testing rounds
  • The referrals show current customers who were in similar positions as newcomers and they were willing to share their success stories with newcomers to help spread the community
  • Social referral program leading to perks (e.g., offer a credit card with a small limit to start building credit score)
  • Documents reminder for appointments by email and by text to avoid drop-offs
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