Company
AIB - Allied Irish Bank
My Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
5 Months
Project Background
The UK Government mandated the ‘Confirmation of Payee’ feature for all banks to enhance security and reduce fraud in online payments. The deadline for integration was November 2023. Our challenge was to incorporate this feature into the AIB UK mobile app while ensuring compliance and maintaining a seamless user experience.
Imagine the unease when transferring a significant amount of money online. You double-check the account details, hoping they are correct. This is the anxiety many users face when making online payments. To address this, we integrated the ‘Confirmation of Payee’ feature into the AIB UK mobile app, ensuring users could verify recipient details before completing a transaction. This case study explores the journey from problem identification to solution implementation, highlighting key insights and outcomes.
My Design Process
Requirements
Breaking Down the Requirements
To kick off we began by breaking down the requirements for the project. We were provided with 2 sets of separate requirements, business requirements and UK Government Requirements.
Our first step was to dissect these to ensure the project aligned with organizational objectives and regulatory standards.
Overview of Requirements:
10 Potential Outcomes:
Users could receive up to 10 different outcomes based on the payee account information entered.
Mandatory Security Feature:
This feature was compulsory for all UK banks.
Fraud Warning Integration:
A necessary component to address the rise in online scams.
Strict Language Compliance:
Specific phrases mandated by the government to ensure clarity and legality.
Current flow
Analysing the existing journey
The implementation of this feature would touch on numerous different areas in the payments section of the app, so it was important to identify each of these areas and how the implementation of this feature could influence the various flows. This also provided a clearer scope of the overall size of the project, which helped to plan the integration effectively.
Competitor Analysis
How have others incorporated this feature?
We studied how top competitors had implemented the ‘Confirmation of Payee’ feature, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. This analysis provided valuable insights and informed our design decisions.
Closing the Research Phase
Gaining a clearer understanding of the new feature
After breaking down 2 separate sets of requirements, analysing our competitors approaches and identifying all the potential touch points of the new feature, it provided a much clearer understanding of the challenge at hand, along with valuable insights that could inform my design decisions moving forward.
Problem Statement
Defining the challenge at hand
To provide a clear direction moving into the design phase, we defined the challenge we were faced with:
Goals
Identifying Business and User goals
The....
Task Flow
Exploring potential flows from a high level
This allowed us to gage how the flow could work with the addition of the new feature. Exploring possible flows before jumping into design mode gave us more structure when ideating concepts in the next stage.
Our focus at this stage was directed towards 3 particular outcomes, as these would appear most often to users. These were Full Account Match, Partial Account Match & No Match.
Ideation
Turning Ideas into Concepts
A variety of potential ideas were explored through quick iterating of low-fidelty designs. Once we explored all the possible avenues, we narrowed down the ideas to 2 main concepts that we could explore further.
We discussed these concepts with stakeholders to find out what aspects of each approach would be technically feasible. From here we could further narrow down our final concepts.
Mid-Fidelity
Progressing our concept to a higher fidelity
With a concept approach decided on, we moved forward and started to progress our designs into a higher fidelity designs. As the design progressed it was important to discuss the work with the design team and gather feedback from outside eyes to add a different perspective.
Feedback
Project Critique with the Design Team
I conducted design critiques to gather feedback and gain different perspectives on the work done to date. This stage emphasised constructive criticism, which brought to light the good and the bad aspects of the design, and gave direction for moving the designs forward.
Key feedback from critique
Friction is not always bad!
Recognizing that friction in design can sometimes lead to better user experiences or outcomes. This mindset encourages designers to consider the nuances of user interaction.
Design Revision
Iterating on the designs based off feedback
Iterating on the designs based on feedback and insights gathered during the critique process.
Process Mapping
Mapping out the full Journey
Mapping out the design process to visualise the workflow and identify potential bottlenecks or inefficiencies.
Customer Testing
1. Preparing for User Testing
Preparing for the testing phase by defining test scenarios, recruiting participants, and setting up testing environments.
2. Carrying out the Tests
The usability tests were carried out on 5 existing AIB employees. Each test ran for 45-60 minutes. While testing the users, another member of design team took ongoing notes to highlight any behaviours and timestamp important moments during the test.
3. Analysing the Data
Analysing the data collected during testing to extract meaningful insights about user behavior, preferences, and pain points.
4. Developing insights
The final step of the Usability testing was to develop actionable insights based off the data we got from testing. These insights were crucial for progressing the designs and creating a more user friendly experience.
Would double check details before continuing with a "negative outcome".
Customer found outcomes to be cause of their own input of details.
Customers did not engage with the information banner on the input screen.
Customers didn't see link between 'Reason of Payment' dropdown and fraud warning screen.
Customers found overall journey was long with too much friction but navigation was straight forward.
Customers found the 'Reason for Payment' field to be unnecessary.
Design Revision
Applying user feedback to the Designs
Testing provided valuable insights that guided our design in the right direction. The changes made to the designs based on the insights from user testing was the final changes before presenting the final polished designs to stakeholders.
Design Handover
The Final Designs
We presented the final designs to stakeholders, providing clear documentation for the development team to ensure a smooth transition to implementation.
Full Account Match
This ensures to the customer that they are sending money to the correct account. The user is notified with an unobtrusive banner after the Account Details screen.
Close or Partial Match
This warns the user that details do not fully match, but are close. The user will receive suggested details that are an exact match with the account they wish to send money to.
No Account Match
The name that the user enters does no match the name associated with the account number entered.
Other possible outcomes:
Project Learnings
Key Learning: The importance of effective communication with stakeholders
During this project, I learned how important it is to start with a detailed analysis of the requirements. By breaking down both business and government guidelines early on, I made sure our solution was compliant and met organisational goals. Balancing regulatory needs with a good user experience was challenging but essential. The iterative process and user testing highlighted the value of involving users at every stage. Their feedback helped to refine the designs and provided valuable insights. This project also highlights the importance working closely with different teams, including compliance, development, and design, to create a well-rounded solution.
Next Steps
Importance of effective communication with Stakeholders
Going forward, the implementation of the ‘Confirmation of Payee’ feature will be monitored and feedback will be gathered from our customers. This will help to identify any issues and make necessary improvements for future iterations or enhancements.
