Designing a banking app can be a long and demanding process. After all, such apps are something many people use on a daily basis. Because of that, they have to be easy to navigate and make it possible for their end users to find and digest complicated data.
To make it happen, you should zero in on the basics of user experience, namely efficiency, utility, and ease of use. If a given product or system is created with the things listed here in mind, then user experience is almost guaranteed to be positive.
In case you need some extra help, here, you will find a short overview of practices related to user experience that you should be taking into consideration when designing a banking app.
We will also touch upon communication, accessibility, and a number of other things that should help take any financial technology product to the next level.
Help Clients Reach Their Goals
Your banking app is meant to help your clients manage their finances. You could take it a step further and turn it into a tool for reaching financial goals. One way of doing it is to invest in software development services and develop a system that will help people save money.
To illustrate, you could round up their account balance every day and transfer the surplus funds to their private piggy banks. You could also add a few gamification features, such as challenges, progress bars, and points that they can exchange for rewards and collectibles. It should make their product experience much more engaging.
Make Transferring Funds Easy
If you want your customers to be satisfied with your app, do your best to make transferring funds as easy as possible. Be it splitting the bill with someone or lending their best friend a few dollars, it should be effortless and intuitive.
First of all, ensure that important information is clearly visible. The on-screen keyboard should not prevent the customer from seeing what they are typing into a given field.
Other than that, remember to give users an opportunity to review to whom they are sending money. The last thing they want to do is accidentally send their hard-earned money to the wrong person.
Provide Fast Customer Support
An app that suddenly stops working can be one of the most frustrating things in the world. Payments tend to be incredibly time-sensitive, and running into a sudden error might have unpleasant consequences.
So, if a user suddenly runs into a problem, they should be able to resolve it immediately. Taking that into account, you should provide each customer with lightning-fast customer support.
If possible, it should come in the form of phone calls, live chats, and emails. By offering a few different options, you will be able to cater to the needs and preferences of a larger number of people.
Show Spending Analytics
Have you ever wondered how you managed to spend such a large sum of money in just a week? In such a situation, spending analytics can be a godsend.
You get to see how much money you spend on food or entertainment in a specific period of time. With that knowledge, you are fully prepared to make informed financial decisions.
When designing such a feature, make it simple and easy to digest. For example, you could show the user the amount of money spent on a graph. It does not have to be complicated or interactive.
What matters here is its usability. Too much information, and it will be too complicated to understand. Too little information, and it will be of little to no use. You need to strike a balance between the two for the best user experience.
Ensure An Inclusive Experience
If you do not want to get in trouble, you should treat mobile accessibility regulations and standards with the utmost respect. By doing so, you can ensure that people with a broad spectrum of disabilities and conditions have a rich and inclusive experience.
In case you do not know where to start, here is a list of the most important things you should keep in mind:
- Use simple, accessible, and gender-neutral language.
- Make illustrations, images, and branding elements inclusive.
- Remove redundant buttons and pages.
- Keep forms short by asking for necessary information only.
- Make it possible to change the font size and turn on high contrast mode.
Create Personalized Experiences
Banking products that make use of personalization enjoy numerous benefits. By offering an experience tailored to the user, you can make every single customer feel more valued and appreciated.
However, it is worth noting that such a deeply personalized experience should be developed one step at a time. It is a long and demanding process. If you want to get it right, you should aim to achieve small victories over a longer period of time.
When it comes to fintech applications, personalization can take many forms. You could provide users with an option to customize the way your application looks. It can be something as simple as being able to change the color of the background or the font.
Make Regulations Easy To Understand
Since you are dealing with people’s finances, you will have to stick to plenty of regulations. Unfortunately, doing so might limit the capability of an application and cause its users a great deal of frustration. Due to that fact, you should try to make the end user understand how important such things are.
While you are at it, treat it as an opportunity to earn their trust. For instance, two-factor authentication might seem like a hassle, and not every user might appreciate it.
You could make it clear why it is needed by writing a short article on the topic. In the article, emphasize the benefits of two-factor authentication and how it makes it easier for you to keep users’ data safe. Then, when users are prompted to set it up, you could add a link to the article underneath the prompt.
Provide Educational Content
Speaking of writing articles, you could really add to the app by providing its users with educational content. Just keep in mind that it has to be bite-sized and written in simple language.
Its main aim is not to show off your expertise but to help people from all walks of life make sounder decisions with their money.
Do not forget to add some interesting pictures and images to your articles. First, it can help break it up into digestible parts. Second, it can make content more engaging, particularly if the images feature any interesting graphs or restate important points from the article.
In the end, educational content can be a valuable tool for a user’s experience with your product. They will not perceive you as just an institution. Instead, you will be someone who contributes and cares about their financial well-being, which can easily end up being a source of customer satisfaction and boost brand loyalty.
Make Things Easy To Find
The main purpose of every single banking app is to help people manage their finances. For that reason, key information like account balance, spending analytics, recent spending, and anything relevant should be easy to find.
With that in mind, you should invest in UX research. It entails studying what the end users of a given system need and expect to ensure proper findability. In other words, it tells you how to structure the information that you want to put in the app.
For instance, it could help you determine where to put the option to contact customer support. UX research can take different forms, ranging from simple questionnaires and card sorting to eye-tracking software.
Having gathered enough data, you will have to interpret it and change the design of the app to reflect what you have learned. While it can be time-consuming, it is bound to result in a positive customer experience.
Be Innovative
Banks were conservative when it came to adopting digital experiences, including banking applications. Just a decade ago, such banking products had few features, the majority of which were geared towards finding branch and ATM locations or handling balance inquiries.
Now, it is not uncommon for banks to just copy what the competition is doing. If it worked for other institutions, why not do the same thing? The downside of such an approach is that it causes you to lose the competitive edge you need to stand out from the crowd.
If you decide to be more innovative, daring, and open-minded, you might stumble upon some genuinely novel and interesting features. It gives you a massive advantage, given how competitive the financial industry can be.
In Conclusion
Creating a banking app is a huge responsibility. Since you are dealing with people’s money, any mistake you make can have far-reaching consequences. Fortunately, by following the ten practices listed here, you can avoid most of the common pitfalls and deliver a product that will meet the needs and expectations of your target audience.
If you are looking for more ways to improve the user experience of your app, do not hesitate to contact a software development company specializing in financial technology. With their help, you can take your app to the next level and ensure that it provides an optimal experience for your customers.
