Banking Back Office
Transforming a legacy system To empower Fintechs to run & manage their businesses.
Client
Thredd
Timeline
9 Months/1 Year
Content
Bad Back Office Is Bad Business
This client, serving clients like Revolut, Starling & Curve, had a legacy problem. This critical, outdated system was their main interface. The system was hurting sales, impacting customer satisfaction and damaging their reputation.
This legacy transformation, their first web app, drove ARR, delighted customers and formed a key step in Thredd's product strategy.
Key Results
Sales & satisfaction
ARR of >£250k.
References in lost opportunity analysis from 40% to 0%.
Huge increase in customer satisfaction.
Strategic objectives
Major milestone in the companies’ transformation- Their first web app.
Process
Elevated design team’s influence- More resource allocation & focus on design quality.
Improved design & engineering maturity by introducing new process and team structures.
My Role
Design
Research-User interviews, survey, NPS & sales data interrogation.
UX strategy, Design system governance, design sprints & team oversight.
Strategy
Product vision & goals, stakeholder alignment & roadmap development & prioritisation.
Process improvement, design, development and product trifecta establishment.
Strategy, Priority and Buy In
Visualising the vision
Problem
Stakeholders are attached to legacy, getting buy in & input early is crucial. Business goals were not well understood, and the complexity of the system is challenging.
Strategy and Approach
Engage stakeholders through problem framing workshop to clarify business goals and gather input. Develop a shared product vision to foster discussions about moving away from legacy systems.
Results
Achieved improved alignment on business goals- Agreed that customers faced the biggest challenges so focusing on their needs first would solve business problems faster.
Results
Achieved improved alignment on business goals- Agreed that customers faced the biggest challenges so focusing on their needs first would solve business problems faster.
Rebrand, reskin or re-platform?
Problem
Complexity & cost of the project, as well as poor design maturity was hindering design resource allocation. Senior management wanted as little design resource as possible, strongly advocating for a simple reskin. This would risk project success.
Strategy and Approach
Use a survey to target large numbers of customers to uncover problems to be solved- Measure satisfaction and usability separately. Interview customers readily available.
Execution
Targeted 50 customers from a variety of segments using Qualtrics. Spoke with 4 decision makers. Asked open ended exploratory questions about problems, needs & opportunities.
Results
Uncovered customer satisfaction was high (5.5/10), a SUS score of 40- Clearly demonstrating the need for UX re-platforming. Now had a design specific metric. Customers alluded to UX issues- "Full of information, impossible to use"
What does this thing do?
Problem
Requirement building was severely hindered due to a lack of documentation, understanding and resource to assign product managers and B.As.
Strategy and Approach
Utilize Miro to collaboratively dissect the system piece by piece, build up a capability library- Focusing on objects, actions and assigning BA resource to uncover metadata.
Execution
We conducted focused sessions to break down the system into manageable parts, documenting insights and requirements in Miro, and encouraging team contributions for comprehensive coverage.
Results
Established a well-organised repository of system requirements, enhancing team alignment and understanding, which streamlined the development process and improved overall project clarity.
Prioritise most used features & majority of users
Problem
Lack of prioritisation approach was hindering design and development team decision making
Strategy and Approach
Utilise usage logs and behavioral research findings to develop a 2x2 prioritisation matrix, focusing on screens and other critical areas necessary to create a comprehensive user journey.
Execution
Analyse usage data and research outcomes to identify key user interactions, then map them into the prioritisation matrix to guide development efforts.
Results
Enabled the product team to develop a clear and customer centric roadmap, reducing friction and providing guidance.
Design Foundations
Mid project rebrand, design principles
Problem
Mid-project rebrand and a minimal existing design system. Analysis Paralysis impacting project timelines, lack of shared goals causing friction with teams & sheer project complexity - Namely the broad user base & customer segments, regulatory requirements.
Strategy & Approach
Establish an Atomic design system in the new brand, building as we progressed. Develop Design Principles to drive consistency, guide decision making, foster collaboration and enhance efficiency.
Execution
Design system audit, building out missing components as required. Using user research & collaborating with x-functional teams, we developed decision based design principles and embedded in Design Definition of Ready checklist.
Results
Design System of reusable styles, components, and variants to boost UX and design consistency, in collaboration with marketing. More efficient design work, better collaboration and a design north-star for the project, written in stone.
Front-loading behavioural user research
Problem:
Poor documentation and lack of customer led use cases were a risk to project success. A lack of understanding of who uses the system, why and what their context of use was meant that UX activities were hindered.
Strategy & Approach
Conduct field studies to uncover use cases, user journeys and uncover opportunities to improve UX overall.
Strategy & Approach
Conduct field studies to uncover use cases, user journeys and uncover opportunities to improve UX overall.
Results
Design sprint delays avoided as research was front-loaded, Structure and guidance to feature level design work. True user centricity in the resultant system led to few usability snags in testing.
Information Architecture
Problem
Learnability & findibility in the existing system were key customer challenges elucidated from the SUS scoring. Payments lacks standardised terminology, and the existing system had no concept of content grouping or categorisation.
Strategy & Approach
Using the system mapping, identify key objects in the system. Identify content heavy sections & use card sorting to create content categories.
Execution
To elucidate use cases and future user journeys, we scheduled 12 field studies with customers & divided the work equally. We surfaced these in user types, scenarios and to be user journeys and added to development tickets.
Results
Design could proceed efficiently knowing content structure already, thereby ensuring we could focus on creative problem solving during sprints.
Product Design
We worked in two-week sprints, two sprints ahead of development. For each sprint, we focused on a key feature and our desired outcome-By articulating different user journeys associated with each feature we were able to ensure differing user needs were met. Per sprint, we developed concepts to address user pain points or identified key UX challenges. We ran x-functional design crits to elucidate feedback and ensure that our solutions were meeting business objectives.
The system enables users to find Customers, multiple types of Cards and Digital Wallets (e.g Gpay) and view Transactions that happened on these objects. Users can manage customer details, perform actions on cards and digital wallets such as blocking them and adjusting balances. Users can see audit trails of activities performed on an account. Finally, users can see granular configurations and rules set on cards and digital wallets.
Outcomes
I successfully contributed to a major company milestone by designing their first web app, leading to over £250k in ARR and a significant boost in customer satisfaction.
My work eliminated design-related references in lost opportunity analysis, dropping from 40% to 0%.
Additionally, I elevated the design team’s role within the organisation, securing more resources and improving design quality by implementing new processes and team structures.
Key Results
Sales & satisfaction
ARR of >£250k.
References in lost opportunity analysis from 40% to 0%.
Huge increase in customer satisfaction.
Strategic objectives
Major milestone in the companies’ transformation- Their first web app.
Process
Elevated design team’s influence- More resource allocation & focus on design quality.
Improved design & engineering maturity by introducing new process and team structures.