Multi-user experience
A multi-user experience is any experience where the client adds a third party to their account. This includes a business owner adding an employee, a parent adding a child as an authorized user to a credit card, a person adding a spouse as a joint account holder, a wealth client adding a financial advisor to a brokerage account, etc.
The Ask
The goal of this project is to investigate user experiences that allow users to add another person to their account across all banking products, be it a partner, child, family accountant, etc. We wanted to identify and understand gaps in the experiences and then work with lines of business to deliver design solutions that align with long term business goals. This project is currently in the beginning phases, but my work done here highlights my process that I use before I start designing and is the most in-depth research I have ever done before designing due to the complicated nature of the project. It is important to me to fully understand the problem at hand, the current gaps, and the products behind the design before I start wireframing.
1) Research and Understanding
The first step of this project was to identify every part of the experience that allows for another user to be added. There are many complicated products and relationships throughout the banking products, so it was imperative to speak with experts in the line of business repeatedly so that I could continue to ask questions and understand how the product and the associated relationships work. Not only did I investigate current experiences in the online experience, but I also investigated experiences that take place in the branch or over the phone, since there could be dependencies or opportunities to integrate these experiences with the online banking platform.
I used a Miro board to keep track of notes I took during conversations around the multi-user experiences across all products and segments. In addition to setting up meetings with business and product partners, I called bank branches across the country in order to understand their part of the experience. I also went through legal documents and process documents to better understand how users are added to accounts and what the various roles mean. I was the sole person on the team who did the research into how multi-user experiences work. Part of my notes are shown below.
The Process
2) Identify and Prioritize Gaps
As shown in the image above, the top gaps in the experience needed to be extracted from a large amount of information. Additionally, I needed to understand from business leaders what the strategic priorities were for the bank so that I could prioritize the gaps to focus on in the next phase of the project. I had a conversation with the Head of Digital Servicing at Truist in order to understand the top strategic priorities. Once I knew these priorities, I was able to narrow the focus of the project going forward and select an area of focus that would most closely align with the bank’s business goals. I am unable to disclose private strategic information, but can explain the process I used as I moved forward with the new focus, which I will refer to as “Project Alpha.”
3) Utilize Research to Solve for Gaps
This project allowed for my design team to collaborate with the Journey Room architects in a new way. This team had conducted research on the same subject that Project Alpha was about. I was able to facilitate this new collaboration and also work with the journey architects on how we could continue collaborating in the future. For this project, the Journey Room provided us with a list of user needs from a research study, which allowed our team and other stakeholders to come up with solutions that took into account both the user needs and business needs. I facilitated a workshop that allowed everyone on my design team to give their input on the solutions.
3) Synthesize and Present
The final step of the project will be to present the process and solutions to product leaders at Truist. I am working on putting together a presentation that clearly summarizes the reason for the project, the process, the solution, and expected outcome. Additionally, the team of designers that I led created mockups of what some of the solutions could look like if brought to life in the Truist experience. The presentation is in the process of being scheduled, but I will will be presenting the deck to leadership in the product space at Truist.
Challenges and Takeaways
A challenge of this project was synthesizing a large amount of information about how various product types worked. However, I learned from this project that I enjoy understanding how a product works end-to-end and solutioning for the gaps. Of course there are many gaps related to the multi-user experience that design alone cannot fix, but the design research process can help identify and alert the necessary parties of gaps that need to be addressed. This also allowed me to create one concise picture of how multi-user experiences work, and this was something that the design organization did not have before. My goal is to share my findings beyond the design organization so that I can demonstrate the value of the design research process and share important information that might help others.
This project highlighted the importance of understanding as much background as possible before designing, as these experiences are very complex and could have been further disrupted if they had not been properly investigated and understood. Beyond this, the project showed me how critical it is for design and business partners to collaborate so that design efforts align with long term business goals.
Additionally, I was able to step up and get the opportunity to lead a team. Leading a large project remotely was difficult, but it taught me the importance of communication and how I needed to clearly state all of the updates, because people would not see them happening otherwise. I got to learn about how differently people on the team approached problem solving, and I structured the project to cater to people’s strengths. I greatly appreciated my team’s patience as I learned so much from leading this project, which was an incredible experience and ultimately led to me getting promoted to senior designer.