Online Banking for Young Members
Personal Finance Manager is a feature in Sparkasse Online Banking that consists of multiple complex subfeatures. It helps users to effectively manage their financial resources, including income, expenses, savings, to achieve financial goals and maintain financial well-being. This feature is being sold to other German Online Bankings.
Client
Sparkasse
Roles*
UX Design | UI Design | UX Research
*As a freelance UX/UI designer and UX Researcher I contributed to fragments of the Project. I didn’t have detailed and continuous insight of this project. I worked as a supportive role doing researches, benchmarkings, prototypings, qualitative usability testings, documentations and screen designs. I work with multiple Sparkasse UX teams on this project for 9 months.
Methods
Qualitative Usability Test | Usability Test Script | Competitors Analysis | Prototyping | Interface Design | Documentation
Competitors Analysis
At the beginning of this project I conducted a competitors analysis of various online banking such as N26, Revolut, comdirect, Finanzguru. The insight of this analysis are being used continuously by different Personal Finance Management Teams depending on their focus.
Goals
Features scope:
- Setting, editing, deleting, overview budget
- Monthly Insight
- Monthly Wrap-Up
- Forecast
- Monthly wrap up overview
- Monthly requiring expenses and incomes
- Data Visualisation
- Feature NamingsCompare namings for similar features and subfeatures. Since the feature and it’s subfeatures are very complex, the namings should speak clearly to users, builds trust, and trigger users to action.
Information Architecture
Define how and where are the features/subfeatures placed in products of the competitors. Analyse Pros and Cons of each placements.
Map out the user flow of Fixed Expenses, Scheduled Payments, Recurring Payments, Forecast, Budgeting, Monthly Insights, Monthly Wrap-Up.
Benchmarking of User Flows
Competitors Features Comparison
Quantitative & Qualitative Usability Tests
To ensure the effectiveness and success of the usability testing process it must involve careful preparation and organisation. After collecting what specific aspects of Personal Finance Management do the client want to evaluate and what insights do they hope to gain from the testing, together with the client UX Team we will decide on the testing method (quantitative or qualitative). We would then develop realistic scenarios and tasks that participants will perform during the test. These tasks should align with the objectives and cover essential interactions within the design.
Very often the recruitments of the participant and the test duration are planed by the client’s research team before even defining the goals, testing method and scenario of the test. When I notice that the test will take longer than the time planned, I will conduct a pilot test including the recordings few days before the test. If the duration of the conducted pilot extended the planned timing I will inform the client and let them decide, if they would want to reduce the questions in the testings to stay in the planned time and budget or would they prefer to keep the testing script and extend the duration and budget of the test.
Depending on the testing method we always conducted testings remotely online with various testing tools such as Lookback and RapidUserTest.
Planning Test Set Up & Test Scripts
Depending on the recommended testing methods I will create the necessary materials, such as the prototype or design mockups, consent forms, and any instructions or questionnaires for participants.
Prepare Test Materials
After the usability testing is complete I analyzed the data gathered during the sessions. Look for patterns, identify usability issues, and gain insights into user behavior.
The Insight of the Test were collected and analysed first in Miro Board. Learnings, key insights and recommendations were documented in a PowerPoint Presentation that could be used by various UX Teams, POs and Shareholders.
Analyze Results and Report Findings
The test would be conducted by 2 people interchangeably. Most of the time I would have a nativ German speaker to help me moderate the interviews and tests. During the usability test sessions with participants, I would observe the test, take notes, make sure that the prototype works well and request the moderator to ask additional questions if needed.
Conduct the Usability Test
Interface Design
Prototype Flows in Figma
Prototyping
Sometimes due to work load I wasn’t able to participate in the whole process of creating and conducting the usability test. In this case the client would ask me reserve time to create the prototypes for them. They valued my expertise and efficiency with usability test prototyping in Figma.
User Interface Design
In tight collaboration with client UX Team we were experimenting with difference UX and UI designs possibilities. We would collect feedbacks and iterate on the design based on user testing and stakeholders input. Conceptual screen design should follow Sparkasse design guideline but since we are coming up with the new ideas the screen design doesn’t have to be connected to the Design System.
Conceptual User Interface Design
When the last iteration has been approved by the stakeholders, I would create the pixel perfect screen design for desktop and mobile. In this process everything needs to be connected to the design system. It’s important that all the tokens stay unbroken, so the developers could work uninterrupted. As an external Designer I had to know the Sparkasse design system from A to Z. In the final handover I also created a user flow for each user case, so developers could understand it easier.
Final User Interface Design
In this project each subfeatures of the Sparkasse Finance Management (Monthly Insight, Monthly Wrap-Up, Forecast, Fixed Expenses) has collection of complex data that is hard for users to understand if written only in text. To start designing data visualization we need to understand the data and the concept first. Define the purpose why are we showing the data visualisation.
Effective data visualization can lead to better trust from the user perspective. It is very important in the finance industry to win the users trust und showcase the transparency.
We had the graphics tested to Tailor the data visualization to the target audience's level of understanding and familiarity with data concepts. We adapt the complexity and format accordingly.
