HELPED users confidently explore ways to grow their money by testing 2 concepts for a bank's savings and investment journey

BANKING / UNDER NDA

Role: Lead UX Researcher

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Challenge

customers oFTEN STORE THEIR CASH FOR SAFE KEEPING without exploring SAVING AND investment opportunities. Many that do are new to investing and have limited knowledge about how to grow their money effectively.

Some customers eventually consider investing after realising the need for long-term financial planning. Typically, they are self-taught in this journey and may have misconceptions or limited knowledge about saving and investment opportunities. Our client aimed to guide these customers towards better financial decisions by presenting clear savings and investment options within its mobile app.

The result

DELIVERED INSIGHTS on 2 user flows AND prioritised ISSUES WITH SEVERITY RATING scores

This study gave valuable insights to our client such as discovering how customers interact and prefer to engage with savings and investment products in their mobile app. Also, usability challenges with the prototypes that were tested, particularly confusion around education screens and navigation between sections. These findings were categorised as ‘Issues’, which were categorised by impact and prioritised using the banks internal severity scoring system.

The full story

Evaluating the EFFECTIVENESS and usability of several flows and capturing users’ preferences

As a deposit-heavy bank, many customers will often passively deposit cash as a safe pair of hands. Some of these customers may turn to investing, usually self-taught, after realising they need to put their money away for longer. Our client had a clear goal to help customers uncover saving and investment options to better utilise their money. This required research to determine the most effective solutions and discover any frustrations.

I conducted 6x 45-minute in-person usability sessions. Participants explored what first steps they would take to grow a £5000 sum using the client’s UK Mobile App. The focus was on usability, sentiment, and user feedback from two app concepts:

  • Concept A: Separate entry points for “Investments” and “Savings.”

  • Concept B: Integrated journey combining “Savings and Investments.”

Additionally, each concept had a different user flow with alternative text and infographics informing users on saving and investing, including forecasts and caveats.

The research objectives were to:

  • Determine whether users preferred separate or integrated entry points.

  • Identify which flow resonated better with customers.

  • Assess which key information was most effective in bridging the knowledge gap and motivating users to invest.

  • Evaluate which dashboard layout was more helpful for product discovery and decision-making.

DELIVERED

presented INSIGHTS to the client AND prioritised ISSUES WITH their SEVERITY scoring system

Findings were categorised as Issues (barriers to task completion) or Insights (observed behaviours and participant comments). Issues were prioritised using our client’s severity scoring system:

 

Severity Scoring

Severity scores were calculated as: Task Criticality × Issue Impact × Frequency

‘Task criticality’ was assigned before testing by stakeholders based on the impact on the business and its objectives and I assigned the ‘Issue impact’ based on the impact it had on users.

‘Issue impact’ score was assigned on completion of testing based on the impact it had on users during the session.

  • 5 – Critical: Prevents task completion, must be fixed urgently.

  • 3 – Major: Causes frustration or delays.

  • 2 – Minor: Slight impact on user experience.

  • 1 – Suggestion: Optional improvements based on user feedback.

 

Example:

  • Criticality: 5

  • Issue Impact: 3

  • Frequency: 83%

  • Severity Score: 12.5 (Priority: 10/20)

 

IMPACT

A few prioritised insights presented to the client were:

  • The integrated approach (Concept B) was preferred by most users as it provided a clearer overview of options.

  • Many participants struggled with the infographics in the integrated flow to understand and compare key information.

  • Users often missed the back-to-app link after being redirected to a browser to learn more about individual products.

 

By refining comparison tools, improving education infographics, and ensuring smoother navigation, our client could create a more intuitive and engaging experience, helping customers confidently transition from passive saving to discovering and actively engaging with savings to investment solutions.

Key takeaways

multitasking DURING sessions

Working solo on this project without a note-taker required me to multitask while moderating the sessions between leading the sessions, making digital notes of users behaviour, statements and success rates of the tasks. A group of stakeholders from both the UK and International branches were watching the sessions in-person and remotely and had access to an internal chat embedded to the video stream which allowed them to give the moderator real-time feedback during the sessions.

REPORTING GUIDELINES

Writing the insight report for this project required me to use an internal reporting template, with established style guidelines and severity scoring system that the banks internal teams solely use. I decided to use some of the preparation time to learn and logistically set-up and prepare the report to save time during analysis and avoid any issues that could delay the delivery.