Client
Publicis Sapient for Barclays US

Timeline
April 2018 - March 2019

Project responsibilities

Discovery workshops | Stakeholder management | Design team management | Design system management | Resourcing | Design direction | Concept creation | Wireframing | Design reviews and presentations

Challenge

Design, build and launch a digital mobile-first bank in the US to stand out from the “sea of sameness”.

Objectives

• Develop a profoundly unique and differentiated mobile app banking experience grounded on competitive and consumer research. Help transform Barclays US as a leading, customer-centric organisation by delivering a unparalleled digital experience.

• Utilise existing strategy and research into the bank’s potential customers, offerings, and functionality

• Create working in collaboration/co-creation withkey bank stakeholders & Barclays customers

• Incorporate thinking from other industries, customer research, and forward-looking concepts

To achieve this the team took a 2 path approach:

Path 2

Nail the basics including how the four product experiences can be as frictionless as possible to a user

Path 1 - design approach

Discovery Workshop

The initial immersion phase of design surfaced three interaction concept models: Conversation Starters, Mosaic Map, & Storybook. Each concept had its own approach to providing valuable insights into a consumer’s finances.

Sketch concept

After a collaboration session with the client, the “Mosaic Map” interaction concept model was chosen. Responding to the challenge of ‘banking not banking’ the design team began the design iteration process, starting with a series of paper prototypes.

Hi-fidelity prototype

The paper design process proved to be inspirational and very productive, which lead to the creation of a high-fidelity interactive prototype.

The mosaic map concept design was presented to the client and was well received. However, it didn’t pass the approval of Barclays CEO, who unknown to all, had a new direction waiting for us.

Chapter 2

Visual Metaphors

Design iteration
Based on a ‘well-being scaffolding financial risk model’ developed by Oxford Risk, the team was challenged to find “visual metaphors” with the purpose of enabling customers to easily understand their full financial landscape. Powered by emerging AI technology the app would automatically delegate day-to-day banking tasks and recommend ways to save & invest.

Concept Designs

Three design squads were tasked with developing the financial well-being model into a fully functional digital product. Each model was based on a different visual metaphor that could enable a customer to see a full picture of their finances from immediate spending, and mid-term investment to long-term goals and gains.

Visual Metaphor – ”Telescope” Concept Prototype

Chapter 3

No Regrets

Through all the twists and turns of the design process, the client always maintained a ‘no regrets’ policy. This meant that if the final concept didn’t meet both business and consumer requirements, we’d have a ‘standard’ design ready to release.

The team focused the remainder of the engagement on a consumer banking app that provided the standard range of financial products & services including; app onboarding, checking account, check deposits, credit card details, customer support, and cross-sell functionality.

System Design

As with all best practice approaches to digital product design, the team created a robust design library housed and maintained in Sketch.