2019 UX Case Study

WaFd Bank

Project Overview

Washington Federal, being regulated from opening any new branches, began a 'Digital First' strategy. This vision 2025 plan included growing deposits through new features, new products, apps and improved digital experiences.

To be successful, Washington Federal had to drop it's old brand, and antiquated 3rd party application portfolio.

This case study shows the successful development of the Brand and redesign of digital assets.

Responsibilities

As Director of Design I was in charge of the product roadmap, information architecture, digital branding, style guide, product strategy, wireframes, usability testing, and crafting the final designs.

Roles

  • UI/UX Design
  • Usability Testing
  • Wire Framing
  • Information Architecture
  • Competitive Research
  • UI Design
  • Creative Direction

Tech

  • Sketch
  • Figma
  • Adobe XD
  • Mendix
  • HTML, SCSS
  • Jira

Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.

Stage 1: Discovery and Research

Washington Federal's Website had a large number of obvious UX errors that needed to be addressed immediately.

I fixed a number of overall architecture and product design issues.

  • Long drill-down navigation
  • A location request dialog poped up on every page
  • Confusing login with business banking jump menu that looked related to username
  • Un-relatable invested here tagline
  • Poor quality responsive design
  • Redundant 'Nearest branch' and 'Locations'

Stage 2: Empathize—Research Your Users' Needs

Understand the customer, their mindset and how they use the products. What is their emotional state and outcome?

I analyzed recorded sessions and heatmaps in hotjar, as well as customer demographic information to develop personas.

Stage 3: Define—State Your Users' Needs and Problems

"People need a better understanding of where their money is going each month"

"People want to better understand the fees and costs of doing banking"

"People want to feel like they are banking locally and trust the staff"

"People want to easily sent money to friend and family and manage household budgets"

Stage 4: Ideate—Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas

Do people still use checks? How can we grab market in the growing p2p payment space?

No idea was left out in the ideate phase of designing WaFd banking products that consider the customer needs first in a quickly changing landscape

Stage 5: Prototype—Start to Create Solutions

Wireframeing and Testing

Stage 6: Test—Try Your Solutions Out

Talents

User Experience

Design Thinking

Visual Design

Creative Direction

Branding

Design Systems

Leadership

Accessibility

Front-end Development

Mobile First

Tools

Adobe Creative Suite

Figma, Sketch, XD

CSS3 and HTML5

JavaScript and Jquery

WordPress

Jaws

Bootstrap

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