The challenge
Nedbank is seeking to become a 'digital first and first-in-digital' bank. As a result, the bank has identified a need to launch a competitive product for its existing clients that offers the convenience of paying securely while continuing to enjoy the same benefits and rewards of using a physical card.
The solution
With my role as a user experience designer on this project, I was tasked with coming up with a Virtual Card solution that can compete with similar products in the market. We kicked off the project by collecting sentiments to serve as the basis of our solution. This project was conducted by an external research team that surveyed several consumers to determine what the appeal would be of a Virtual Card from Nedbank. Upon receiving these results, we started working on the design of the Virtual Card solution that would be integrated into Nedbank's mobile app.
As part of the prototyping phase of the project, the team created low-fidelity screens for the Virtual Card solution based on the requirements gathered. To demonstrate the potential look and feel of the Virtual Card feature, stakeholders were shown these screens. Our design team, having taken into account the inevitable technical obstacles we would face, came up with a number of different designs to meet the requirements. Based on these designs, we created a single user flow with one aspect of the feature (pictured below) undergoing A/B testing to determine which was more popular with users.
After the user testing session, we were able to gather a significant amount of insights from our real-world users. The insights, along with feedback from stakeholders, were used to re-iterate on existing designs. We redesigned the user flow to closely align the Virtual Card feature with how a physical card operates in the real world (e.g. Having an about more section to provide users with additional information about the Virtual Card feature), increased flexibility (e.g. Allow users to block or freeze their Virtual Cards), and optimising scalability for better integration in upcoming updates to Nedbank's design language.
The results
Through a thorough understanding of the problem, we developed an intuitive and user-friendly solution for our existing customers. By focusing on the "Why" of the project, we were also able to meet the design project requirements on time, too.
Next steps and lessons learnt
The Virtual Card feature is currently in development and the MVP release is scheduled to launch on the Nedbank's mobile app (iOS/Android) in 2022.
As a result of this project, I have learned to be deliberate in whatever I do. Being intentional, whether through asking the right questions or creating a range of design options for stakeholders, is essential to achieving effective results. In addition to this, I learned to always rely on existing data before making a decision. On numerous occasions, I had to steer stakeholders away from making subjective decisions that could potentially impact our goal of creating a best-in-class user experience. As an advocate for our users, I tasked myself to invalidate these decisions by providing factual data that can ensure we provide a user-first approach at all times.
