As a long-term Bank of America (BOA) app user, I enjoy its useful features that allow me to manage my money easily on my phone instead of going to the bank all the time. In the meantime, I encountered lots of problems and confusion while using the product. As a designer, this triggered me to think about how we can redesign the product to improve its usability.
Product Design
UX Researcher
UX Testing
Product Manager
Product Designers (Me!)
Engineer Team
Figma
FigJam
2024
BOA users struggle with navigating efficiently, confidently to complete financial tasks, and track financial activities promptly.
Increase customer satisfaction rate (CSAT) with efficient experience
Increase business opportunities with new features and interface
Based on Bank of America's Digital trends fact sheet in Q4 2023, we discover that more and more users are using digital platforms to manage their finance, especially on money transitions.
57 Million
verified BOA digital users
37.9 Million
active mobile users
21.5 Million
clients now use Zelle®
2 : 1
Zelle vs checks in 4Q 2023
Based on users' comments in Google Play and Apple store, we discovered that users find the current bill pay function hard to use. They are unable to set up automatic and recurring payment, make it challenging to pay bills efficiently and cause financial lost (eg. late fee, overpay).
Users find the current app's user flow and information architecture confusing. Lots of information and features are unaccessible or hard to find, make it challenging to perform tasks or find info.
Users find the AI assistant Erica unhelpful and annoying. The financial insights Erica provides is not useful and it cannot complete tasks users wish it to do. Certain users are also asking for customizable experience.
Fintech vs Traditional Bank
In the first half of 2023, Fintech companies accounted for 47% of new accounts opened.
New Service Approaches
Fintech companies highly prioritize user experience, implementing accessibility, personalization, and functionality through technology.
Digital Support
Banks with a chatbot averaged more than 4,000 monthly sessions in both 2022 and 2023.
Chase Mobile® app offers financial services such as send and receive money with Zelle®, deposit checks, monitor credit score, investing, budget and track income & spend.
Venmo is an online payment service primarily used as a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform but has start to offer payment processing capacity for business owners as well.
As a budgeting apps, Mint allows users to manage all their financial accounts in one place with features like bill alerts, custom budgets and set specific savings goals.
Building an efficient, personalized, and automated mobile banking experience to support consumers’ changing needs and expectations.
Quick action buttons on the homepage for frequently used actions such as pay card.
Users can set automatic payment for their credit cards and get remainders before automatic payment is made.
Be able to set up convenient and instant money transfer between friends and businesses in a few clicks.
Keeps track of payments and recipients through organized contact list and user groups.
A social media-like user experience to attract younger generations and drives user engagement.
Easy to set up budgeting and tracking tools to help users monitor their financial activity.
Flexible and customizable goal setting feature that allow for different scenarios.
Subscription management feature that highlights recurring charges and reports if certain subscriptions increase in price.
The new design will mainly appeal to the younger users groups, as the Millennials (1981 to 1996) and Generation Z (1997 and beyond).
HMW make BOA app an efficient and personalized finance management platform for the younger generation?
Efficiency
Enhance operation efficiency to reduce time & costs.
• Easy operated features
• Instant, real-time services
• Straightforward navigation & user flow
• AI assistant: chat & voice
Personalization
Provide contextually relevant experiences with user data.
• Personalized financial tools
• AI-enabled personalization
• Interface customization
Engagement
Building connection and more engaging experience.
• Branding
• Social elements
• Rewards & Cashback
• Financial literacy & support
The new design added more short cuts and quick action buttons so users can setup their payment more efficiently.