Overview
Illawarra Credit Union are a bank, they came to New Republique for a full website overhaul. After having a rebrand they felt it was necessary to give their website a complete re-design.
My role was predominantly to work alongside fellow UX designer Jackson Alsop to cover everything UX for the project, this swiftly led to becoming a project manager and front end developer for the project.
The problem
Understanding the functionality of the website coupled with the tightness of banking security meant we had some limitations and couldn’t be completely creative. Trying to un-complicate processes on the current website (such as applying for a home loan) was a big task. To solve the issue of long forms, we broke sections of the form into pages, making it easier for the user to focus on a little chunks of info at a time.
Another design problem was to house all the different types of content. Using templates, we came up with a solution to fit all 34 products into.
Business goals
Illawarra Credit Union created a new range of products to feature on the new website. They wanted to drive sales of the home loans, therefore wanted to application process to be re-thought
The challenge
The application processes were long winded, it required the user to download a 3 page PDF and send it back to the bank. Fully understanding all of the terms associated with applying for a home loan was challenging and required lots of research.
Consistency was a big challenge as this build trust within the user when signing up. We solved this by creating a template structure that held all products and general content without breaking the flow of the page.
Getting the users to convert on the page was challenging, as a team we really thought about the users journey. A solution was to add tools and extra information to product pages, keeping the user on the same product page.
Compliance guidelines were something I hadn’t worked with before, luckily the client was proactive in providing feedback about compliance.
Research
We gathered quantitative-statistics from friends, family and colleagues through Skype and phone conversations. As the subject of banking is so broad we asked as many people as possible and collated the information to identify the trends.
Analysis
Illawarra Credit Union had already researched their users and identified their key target audience. Having this extra research provided us with more in-depth knowledge about their users.
Persona development
An interesting pattern immerged between all personas, all personas were heavy mobile and tablet users. So it was essential that the experience worked great (if not better than desktop) on mobile/tablet devices.
User task flow
User flow diagrams were created to determine in a typical scenario how users would find the site, where they would end up and if this impacted the design.
Gestures/animations
Animations were created to test concepts of interactions; these animations were built using Sketch and then animated with Principle. They proved a great resource when explaining to the client how certain functions would work (InVision is great but doesn’t have the option to animate wireframes).
Development
New Republique’s in house front and back end developers got work with cutting up the designs. As I was involved in the project from the beginning I stepped into help out with front-end development and integrating WordPress. I provided assistance when working with the developers on helping them understand certain functions.
Statistics
The outcome
New Republique delivered a user focused digital experience that concentrated on Illawarra Credit Unions latest products.
The team and I made the application process easier by breaking it down into stages, adding key features such as “Save for later” integrated into long and complicated forms.
The site is still going through changes from customer and client feedback, you can view the live site here.