Buxy.
Revolutionize banking with a plug-and-play super-app: personalized lifestyle content, marketplace, bonuses, and educational offers for traditional banks.
The Challenge
Create a revolutionized banking service by developing a plug-and-play solution for traditional banks that brings a super-app experience to their users. This will be achieved through personalized lifestyle content, a marketplace, bonuses, and education offers.
Success would be having a product to the stage where the stakeholder can apply and enter into a fintech incubation programme with the aim of getting investment and get resources to build the initial product while offering it to potential clients for the pilot project.
After our meeting with the founder, we drew out key insights that stood out to create the MVP. The 3 key insights were:
Lifestyle
Marketplace
Education
Curated content based on purchase history and interests.
Traditional banks aren’t maximising the potential for marketplace features for their users.
Users want financial education content to learn how to make wise choices and make their money go further.
Client
My Role
User Research, UX & UI Design, Usability testing, Design System
Buxy
Team
Michael Palfreeman
Alexandra Camp
Julia Briere
Morgan Ager
Tamara Zipporah
We worked as a team for the research phase and then carried out the rest of the project individually.
Duration
2 weeks
Competitive Landscape
After our stakeholder interview we looked into a variety of competitors. These ranged from the direct competitors, in this case, the challenger banks like Revolut and Monzo and also a large selection of other apps that are known for having highly praised features, for example Spotify’s personalization.
Tinkoff
Revolut
Spotify
We looked into Tinkoff bank as it was heavily mentioned during the stakeholder interview as a source of inspiration for the Buxy concept. It’s praised for it’s vast reach in gamification which boosts user engagement with it’s app.
Revolut was a key competitor as it is the most popular challenger bank that rivals traditional banks in a technological and user friendly way. We discovered a clear opportunity for Buxy as these challenger banks lack many traditional features such as mortgages/personal loans.
Spotify is widely known for having exceptional personalisation with the constant updates and push for Daily/Weekly mixes and playlists, tailored podcasts and a huge discovery library.
User Research
After gaining an understanding of the market, we switched our focus to gathering quantitative and qualitative research data.
We surveyed millennials between the ages of 28 - 43 and gathered data from 82 respondents. Some of the interesting data we collected from this included:
47% said it’s very important to have personalisation in their banking app.
74% of users currently use some form of traditional banks
Only 17% said their educational resources on their banking app were either good or excellent.
Rewards were offered by 46% of users banks, yet of these 60% rated the rewards available to them negatively.
We undertook 20 user interviews and gathered over 80 data points. The goal of these interviews was to understand people’s usage of current apps, the importance of design in current banking apps, the importance of rewards and understanding preferences and customisation.
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Users have a high regular usage of their current banking apps and expressed a desire to be able to sort savings more thoroughly using features like a savings pot.
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The importance of simple and clear visual design in banking apps was clearly highlighted.
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Users had a generally positive experience with rewards but showed scepticism around hidden catches or costs, which can then lead to mistrust. Users currently mainly use rewards through Unidays and American Express.
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It was clear that users desire more personalisation as whilst their current platforms have this to some degree, they are currently generic and they’d like to be able to customize features more. Many showed a preference for detailed personal financial planning tools.
Problem Statements
We took our 3 key insights and used these to form problem statements to inform out design direction.
As a user who wants to visit family in New York, I am faced with the challenge of finding the most cost-effective and efficient travel options to reach my destination.
Rewards
As a user responsible for weekly grocery shopping at Tesco for my family, I encounter the challenge of managing expenses and maximizing savings while ensuring that essential items are purchased to meet household needs.
Education
As a user exploring mortgage options, I face the challenge of evaluating the quality and suitability of available products and services to ensure that I secure the most favourable deal for my financial needs and circumstances
Lifestyle
Jobs to be Done
We followed the ‘jobs to be done’ route as we found the focus of our design based on the brief was on the core tasks and outcomes the product should deliver. For the Buxy project we broke this down into ‘lifestyle’, ‘rewards’, ‘education’ and ‘personalisation’.
Rewards
When I engage with my banking app tasks and achieve certain goals, I want to receive reward vouchers for my wins so that I can save money when spending.
Education
When I use my banking app, I want to receive personalized tips about missed opportunities so that I can save money in the future.
Lifestyle
When I travel home to visit my family, I want to find the best deal, so I can spend the savings taking my parents out to dinner.
Value Proposition
In a consumer-oriented world where daily spending is a huge part of every day life, Buxy helps users make smarter choices and save money. Our plug-and-play solution enables traditional banks to enhance value for their customers, increasing engagement and loyalty. Buxy aims to partner with high street banks to serve and benefit their users, providing a service that keeps customers satisfied and connected.
Experience Maps
During our research we explored transactional user experiences that currently exist to understand how people think and feel, we created three user journeys which allowed us to start identifying opportunities and design solutions.
Additionally, we used experience mapping to highlight user journey pain points and improvement opportunities in financial transactions and deal-finding.
Our research revealed several pain points in transactional user experiences: information overload, lack of transparency in discounts, and frustration with inadequate loyalty benefits. To address these, we propose a solution that enhances transparency, aggregates personalized deals, organizes documentation, and uses AI for competitor matches and auto-renewal pricing.
At this point in the project the team began to split off and start designing individual solutions. Given the fact that Buxy is a plug in to traditional banks, I designed this on the basis of Natwest who I personally bank with.
Clarifying the Opportunity
In today's consumer-driven world, we often spend money without fully understanding how efficiently we're using it. While there are numerous opportunities to save or earn rewards, many of us are unaware of where to find these options and how to maximize our savings. Traditional banks, with their vast customer bases, present a significant opportunity to enhance the value provided to consumers. Buxy's plug-and-play solution is designed to deliver substantial benefits to their end users.
Developing Use Cases
Sam wants to go on a holiday with his best friend Dave and is looking for a way to stay organised and focused on saving money.He knows there are deals out there and wants to make use of these so he can make his money go further.
Building User Journeys
A Natwest user using Buxy to save money on their bills whilst accessing all their regular bills information in one place.
A Natwest user setting a savings goal in which they want to save for and book a holiday using Buxy deals.
Concept Development & Ideation
I began with sketching and prototyping in low-fidelity, from this I did a handful of usability testing and have gained valuable feedback.
Concept Development & Ideation
Concept Development & Ideation
User testing & feedback
I tested with 4 participants which provided the following feedback:
Include clearer sharing options for inviting friends to joint savings goals.
Clearer highlighting of the saving goal target figure.
Include a percentage on the savings goal bar
Expand the learning option resources beyond video and reading materials
Building a Design System
As Buxy is designed to be a plug in, I used the Natwest online banking app UI to create my design system to show how Buxy would integrate into their app.
Prototype
Flow 1 : A user looking to save and book a holiday using Buxy deals to hit their savings target.
Flow 2 : A user looking to save money on their bills with Buxy whilst accessing their regular bills information in one place
Design Solutions Summarised
A revolutionised banking service as a plug-and-play solution for traditional banks that brings a super-app experience to their users. Achieved through personalised lifestyle content, a marketplace and education offers.
Financial goal setting and tracking
Alerts on saving opportunities based on regular spending habits
An easy place to store and access bills and discover long term savings
Tailored educational content
Where Next?
Looking ahead, areas for further improvement and refinement of the platform might include:
Use a larger group for user testing: The time constraints of this two week project meant time for user testing was limited.
Deals options feature: Build out the booking options for deals to include options such as theatre tickets, days out etc.
Reinvestment tool feature: Introduce reinvestment tools for using savings to help users grow their wealth and achieve financial goals more effectively.
Develop the educational content and gamification elements: This could include further tailored financial education tools.