UX Redesign: IDFC Bank App

P.S: This is my 1st Redesign project. This is only a concept project and I am not commissioned nor do I own all the images

Why IDFC App?
I am a customer of the bank myself and saw that it can be made more convenient, and so I asked a few friends who also had the same opinion. So it began…

Some background on IDFC
IDFC First Bank is an Indian banking company with headquarters in India’s financial capital that forms part of IDFC, an integrated infrastructure finance company. The bank started operations in 2015, gained popularity in the past few years due to their Remote banking features, Net banking ease and a highly functional mobile app.

Why change? What wasn’t going well?
No major updates have come out in recent times but the user base has changed over time from mostly Investors and Businessmen to a large share of Salaried account holders.

Design Process

The traditional Design Thinking process was used. It started with getting to know the users, their discomfort, pain points and what they liked, through User Interviews. Based on the input from the users and some Competitive Analysis of other popular banking apps the actual design challenges were defined. Now with the research completed quick brainstorming exercises were conducted to gain ideas on how we can overcome the challenges with an appropriate design solution. The wireframes were converted to functional prototypes which were tested by the user and reiterated. and some visual design in the end.

My Roles in this Project

• User Research (Organise Interview and survey, create a User Persona and Empathy Map).
• Information architect, Wireframing.
• Visual design.
• Usability testing.

User Research

Conducted User Interviews with 4 participants of different age groups. with the average age around 30 years. The reason for choosing a range of age group was to ensure usability for all age groups as this is a banking app. This research included more feedback and analysis because the app was not targeting a new section of society, but it was improving the experience for the existing users.

After conducting Semi-Structured interviews and Thematic Analysis the following themes were found to require action.

1. Information Architecture: The application architecture was not similar to most other app interfaces and hence due to the deviation from the general mental model, users faced issues while navigating. There was single global navigation with all the items arranged in a hamburger menu.
2. UPI system not being used due to the change in the interface(users feel it inconvenient to use because it does not resemble their mental model). Users do not want to learn new ways to do the same task
3. The Cards (All cards can be managed in one place instead of different places.)
4. A few small features can add to user convenience which is missing now.

Persona

Challenges

1. Users feel the app is outdated, and not handy enough to use.
2. In-person Branch visits have increased, due to lack of confidence.

Ideation

Keeping the Challenge in mind I had short bursts of brainstorming sessions where I would come up with Solutions. Where I understood that emphasis had to be placed on Simplicity and assurance.

Then a lot of sketching and wireframing and mapping out the structure of the app(IA) was done on paper(roughly). It took a few iterations until I got a to a point where I felt confident about the solution.

Solution

Let's start with the login screen, All login options are available to the user immediately. All options that cannot be exercised are removed, so the users can only see what they can perform on the main screen. Too many options confuse the user.

Screenshot from the original IDFC FIRST Bank App(Left), The redesigned Login screen of the app(Right)

A home screen with a section for services, so they are visible and reachable easily(the bottom of the screen is the most reachable section of a smartphone). All in one place. A simple card sorting session with a couple of users gave me a better understanding of the order in which the services were to be arranged.

The excessive use of red colour for numbers seems like the amount has reduced, hence it was changed to a more neutral colour.

The visibility of the ad is increased by placing it higher up on the screen.

Screenshot from the original IDFC FIRST Bank App(Left), The redesigned Dashboard of the app(Right)

Many other changes were made, Most of it had to do with organising the features. All related and similar features are on one screen instead of the hamburger menu Lesser options allows the user to choose easily(reduced cognitive load and the Time to Completion).

Eg The transfer related options are all arranged on one screen.
All Billing-related info and options are present in the billing section.

A short note on the few decision I took during the process, and why.

Transfer Page

The transfer page has a more intuitive design, which gives the users all the transfer options in one place.
The Report/ Feedback options are given on every screen to report any issues or provide usability feedback because even after the entire design is implemented there might be new issues or issues which have occurred due to development. Banking app is crucial and any issues should be reported as soon as possible.

Statement Page

The Statement page now shows a lot more of the recent transactions(previously 1 or 2 ), This was possible due to rearrangement of the account information and the date selectors.
The account information now also displays IFSC code which is a piece of additional information which is used frequently,

Billing Page

The Billing section has all the billing/payments, adding a recent section was necessary so the users could see the payments they have made recently, and did not have to enter the bill details only to find out that the bill is already paid. There is also a list of upcoming bills that are given, again to keep the user reminded of their upcoming payments,
The account’s section now has a share button, because the user is most likely to share their account details and it’s it better to have the details that can be shared by the user in one place and sharable by one click, reduces privacy risks as well as the hassle of taking a photo or screenshot of the account details, from a passbook or cheque.

User Testing

I asked the interviewees who participated in the initial research if they would be interested in seeing the app after I have redesigned and all 3 of the 4 participants agreed. I had them go through the app and had a feedback session. This process shed some light on the things that could be improved.
For example, the order in which the bills were supposed to be shown. The users mostly went for the upcoming bills and not the recent bills. That could be changed.
The service request feature had to be modified to give options that would regularly be used(eg Card block, Information updates) along with a chat option.

RoI of Design

Offline banking traffic will be significantly reduced. Users will be more confident using the app and hence will not need to visit the bank often.

Easier to get customer feedback with the implementation of a customer service portal, and report options given to the user. So use testing doesn’t stop once the product is launched it continues throughout the lifecycle.

What could have changed

Design system had to be developed at least 70% before the visual design of screens starts. I did it as I went along that created some inconsistencies and took longer to reiterate it.

More detailed research on the domain(in this case banking) would be beneficial in getting the technical details right.

Competitive Analysis would have been a good option to see what other apps are doing right and what our app is doing right, but I choose to skip it due to time constraints.

Thanks for reading.

Would love to hear some Constructive criticism, appreciations are always welcome.