Lego:

Products, plans, and tools that all fit together to build a financial relationship centered around people and their life goals.

 

the objective

Present a proof of concept after 7 weeks to the CIO and the head of banking strategy

my role

Lead information architect and visual designer on a cross-functional team of 5 designers and content strategists

Problem statement

People don't think of money as the end in itself, but a means to an end. You don't save up money just to have it, you save for retirement, for a wedding, for a new home, for a pet, for travel, for financial freedom.

So we asked, how might we design the Ally experience around users' goals and needs, centered around their life and the things they care about, instead of making them think about their life in terms of what products we offer?

getting started

People don’t want a 1/2” drill bit. they want a half inch hole.

— Theodore Levitt

To start off, I led an ideation session to rethink our products the same way I've taught the broader UX team to think about their projects, through the lens of jobs to be done.

My theory was that people don't just want a Savings Account, they want to save a down payment for their new home. They don't want a debt pay down plan, they want the financial freedom that comes from being debt-free.

Throughout the project, the main persona we kept in mind was named Logan:

Meet logan

Age: 28
Location: Nashville, TN
Occupation: Marketing Manager
Income: $80,000

Credit Picture

Fico Score: 695
DTI Ratio: 39%
Student Loans: $31,000
Credit Card Debt: $4,500

Goals

  • Organized and wants to be in control of her finances like she is in other areas of her life.

  • Purchase a home (fixer upper)

  • Get married (eventually)

  • Be successful in her job and finances

  • Avoid new credit card debt

Money Management Approach

  • Knows how much she needs to cover her share of the utilities (Venmos her roommate her share)

  • Tracks her discretionary spending in her head

  • Checks her checking account balance on the US Bank app every Friday to plan for the weekend

  • Making minimum payment on her credit card and student loans every month

journey map

We laid out a user journey that built in a cycle of engagement and confidence building. This helped us structure a framework for the app that allowed the user a low barrier of entry, offering easy wins at the beginning, building confidence to continue on toward their goal, and engage in more goals as they went on.

We overlaid this framework with a list of strategic business initiatives that were planned for the next 5 years, so that we could account for all the tools and goals that would be the building blocks of the experience.

From there, we organized the framework of tools and products into navigational structure options that we could test with users to find out how they think about the way products and tools and plans serve their financial goals.

navigation testing

The team did a series of qualitative interviews with 30 users on a navigation that was goal-oriented, product-oriented, and a combination of the two, to find out which one people most resonated with.

We found that the majority of users not only were able to find what they were looking for in navigation structure centered around life events, we learned qualitatively that this is how most people think about their money. We confirmed our hypothesis that users don't just want a Savings Account with a great rate, what they really want is the future home, or car, or wedding, or vacation of their dreams, and they're just looking for tools to help them achieve those goals.

 

mobile front door

For a little while, we experimented with the idea of the app nav using the same Priorities, Products, and Features framework, but the issue with this approach was that it meant that not every single nav item would be useful every time users opened the app.

We did, however, realize that since the main goal of the storefront navigation on web was a selling place and a front door, we could apply the same approach to the front door of the app.

We pulled through the thread of jobs to be done as we onboarded the user, and with just a few short questions, we’re able to curate products and services to their unique goals, as well as pull in some information right away that would make each of the navigation tabs useful the first time they join.

We also applied the same framework to the “For You” tab, as well as the discovery action sheet in search, to allow users to find Priorities, Products, and Features that way too.

 

updated nav

Currently, the Ally app has five tabs in the global nav bar, and they're not organized well, so I led the team in a card sort exercise, and we were able to consolidate the current functionality into a tab bar with only three navigation items, accounting for the rest of user tasks in contextual ways across the app.

Profile
The profile entry point makes it easy to access and manage app-level settings.

Search
Acts as a shortcut for direct questions and queries as well as a robust offerings menu.

A simple tab bar
The bottom navigation should be useful for everyone without trying to be all things for everyone. No matter how users’ relationships deepen, the tab bar stays the same regardless of which plans and/or accounts they’re using.

  • Today: A new landing screen that grounds users in what they need to know today to work toward tomorrow.

  • Activity: A robust, holistic look at users’ historical activity with recommendations when we’re able to make them, as well as a look at what’s coming up

  • For You: Serves up intelligent analysis of users’ progress, and curated ways to explore blog content, product, feature, and plan ideas.


final testing

We tested several rounds of the app design with users, and found that they were able to easily locate all the tasks we had consolidated into the simpler nav. We also asked test participants to give their reactions to the visual design and tracked their responses to a list of brand attributes including trustworthy, engaging, modern, and informative. Users’ responses aligned well to brand attributes, and they responded favorably to the design overall.

outcome

The final output for the project went on to inform the enterprise-wide One Ally and Mobile Reimagined initiatives, which is the focus of the entire company, all the way up to the highest levels.