SELF-DRIVEN ACCOUNT *
*International name for project. Spanish name is Programa tu Cuenta.BBVA, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, can brag about their cutting-edge banking app being ranked the “best digital banking tool in the world” by Forrester. But they wanted to do even better by helping users improve their money management. The goal was to reduce the time and effort people spend handling their finances by activating automatic actions that customers could tailored to their needs.
- ClientBBVA
- IndustryBanking
- Timeline8 months
- My RoleUX / UI Design
- SCOPEWorking within a scrum framework, I served as the sole UX/UI Designer for the Spanish project. Concurrently, I worked with peer teams in Madrid, Mexico and Turkey to assure product alignment. These teams included researchers, developers, data analysts, product owner, and business stakeholders. The Spanish team was able to launch a new mobile and web app feature designed to give users more control over their finances.
- GOALDeliver a tailor-made money management tool based on automated rules, controlled by users and guided by their own data.
- Cross-Cultural Alignment: BBVA aimed to launch the new app feature in Spain, Turkey, and Mexico. To ensure the tool met the bank’s quality standards and business goals, designers from different countries needed to understand and account for different financial contexts and regulations.
- Global Brand Management: One month prior to the launch of the new feature, BBVA introduced their new brand identity worldwide. Self-Driven Account was the first project entirely built following the rebranding. Therefore, my team was responsible for updating the library of UI components to consolidate the different visual identities from several countries.
3
countries8
months6
automated rulesDefining The Problem
BBVA users struggle to save money and prevent future economic hardships because of their lack of time, effort or financial literacy that would help them handle their finances more efficiently.
User Insights
Working off of a high-level concept, I applied lessons learned during the first concept test conducted by their research team. These were the most important takeaways:
Most people are generally afraid of automation, and are uncomfortable with the feeling of “losing control” of their own money.
Automation could be applied to simple and daily transactions to save users time since no big decisions are involved.
Users want to feel safe in unforeseen situations, so balance control and day-to-day savings management were paramount.
DESIGNING SOLUTIONS
- TYPES OF AUTOMATED TASKSThrough extensive user research, we identified two big users’ goals that could benefit from automation: controlling account balances and increasing savings.
Our design gave users’ peace of mind by setting up a minimum and maximum balance in their bank accounts. When the balance drops or exceeds those limits, funds are automatically transferred from or to another bank account.
We created four different ways to drive automatic savings to fit any user’s lifestyle or goals:
- Round-up every purchase made with a debit card and save those cents.
- Save the unspent part of your monthly budget.
- Pre-save a portion of your paycheck.
- Turn end-of-month leftover balance into savings.
- YOUR MONEY, YOUR RULESWe created a catalogue of six “recipes” to solve for identified users' pain points. These actions were already familiar to clients and, in many cases, they mimicked tasks that users were already doing manually. These “rules” can be customized by users to fit their financial needs and goals. For our MVP, the BBVA app provides pre-made templates for these rules but eventually, users will be able to create their own.
- Our team loved the concept behind IFTTT based on the conditional statement: If X happens, then do Y. We tried to translate it to financial tasks that could be executed automatically once the users set them up.
- THE DIFFERENT STATES OF A RULEWe knew “total control” over automatic actions was a must for BBVA’s users. So, we designed the feature to have a suite of standard rules that, once created, could be switched on/off by each user based on their unique needs.
- MANY ROADS LEAD TO SELF-DRIVENOne of our main challenges was to fit the Self-Driven Account feature within the complex BBVA app ecosystem. The new tool had to be accessible from different entry points that all made sense as part of the user journey. We identified two different entry points:
LEARNINGS
- THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING FLEXIBLE When working with developers side by side, it’s vital to not make assumptions about how easy a task will be. Although I know my way around basic front-end development, sometimes I wasn’t aware of how much time-consuming some changes could be. Being able to consider alternative solutions suggested by developers is key, especially when your team is facing a hard deadline.
- A HATE-LOVE RELATIONSHIP WITH UI LIBRARIESBeing the first time I worked with a robust design system, I couldn’t help experience mixed feelings. On one hand, having proven patterns and components save you a lot of time that can be invested in finding solutions to the user problem you’re trying to solve. On the other hand, if these systems are not easy to edit or extend, the need for new components may result in a draining process by trying to create a puzzle with the existing components and still not being able to design a comprehensive solution.
