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0 @ UBS
Andreas Bossard
www.andreasbossard.com
A lot of websites who use the concept of Web 2.0 (for example Facebook) take
advantage of the human need for social contacts. In the field of online banking such a
networking of the users is difficult, because you don't want your friends to know how
much you spend for what. However it's possible to improve the relationship with UBS, by
setting the focus of UBS e-banking more on communication.
• If you click on "Mailbox" you first see the E-Documents, which are only one-way-
communication, so the customer does not get the idea that the mailbox is really
for active communication with the team of UBS, but more for notifications from
the system or administrative messages to UBS like "my contact details changed".
• In the messages-section the sender-column contains unpersonal sender-names
like "PK-B-POOL MITTELLAND". Only if I open the message, I see who sent it.
This strengthens the impression that the messaging-system is rather unpersonal.
• I once sent a suggestion how to improve the E-Documents-System: "Getting
notifications by E-Mail when an E-Document is received, as a reminder." The
only answer in the mailbox was that it was forwarded to the responsible division
of UBS. When I look at the idea now, I guess it is not possible to implement,
because of legal issues, but still, there was no further reply if it can be
implemented or what the team thought about the idea.
• Personal news on the homepage: The homepage is very static and shows
only my accounts (in my personal e-banking-account, strangely I don't have the
box "Information and news" which is shown in the UBS e-banking demo
application). In order to show the user that he can use the e-banking application
as a communication tool, it would be a good idea to show personal messages
instead of the "Information and news" box. These personal messages could be
delivered depending on the needs and current life-situation of the customer.
Some examples:
◦ To clients between 25 and 30 years a message could be shown like "do
provision for your old age and save on taxes"
◦ If a couple has a an e-banking contract together they could be shown
special offers for couples.
◦ For younger customers, like for example students, this personal news
box could also contain messages about cheaper tickets to the cinema
etc.
◦ Some of these messages of course would link to the contact dashboard
in order for clients to get more information from the customer advisor for
these special offers.
◦ See the following image for a visualization of these ideas.
These suggestions would make the e-banking application more personal and animate the
users to get in touch with UBS. But be prepared that your customer service will also
have to handle more messages because of such a design change. Therefore you will
possibly need more resources for customer service, but of course you will potentially also
get more acquisitions.
However, don't let these Web 2.0 features get too much in the way of other goals like
"making a payment" or "checking my account". User centered design as explained in the
next section should help you keeping the application usable while improving the contact
with the customer.
Write down the main goal of the application. Is the main goal to improve the
communication and the relationship to your client or is it more important that the
customer can get things done (payments etc.)? Once you start from this strategy-level
it's easier to go into more detail and define single tasks (e.g. "make a payment") and
weight the importance of features. Prototypes then can be evaluated and usability-tests
can be defined, based on these tasks.
User Centered Design has some more methods than the ones mentioned above. They
are really helpful to design an application according to the needs of the users, opposed
to the conservative way of having a list of features and putting them together into an
application.
The data of already sent payments would be automatically saved and could easily be
reused later. You don't have to enter all the data again. The workflow would be as
following:
• The user starts entering the first characters of the remittee's name (or account
number)
• While the user is typing, a box shows suggestions of names (account numbers)
the user already sent payments to (see the following image).
Design patterns are regularly used user interface elements in the world wide web, to
which users got used to and which can improve the interaction. Web browsers have
more capabilities than 5 years ago, modern Web 2.0 applications take advantage of
these increased capabilities to make the user experience more seamless and more
comfortable.
• Inline error checking before a form is sent. This has the advantage that the
user doesn't have to fear to get an error message after he clicked on the submit
button. He can be assured that all the entered information is correct when he
submits the form. Example: Twitter sign up:
• Fill textfields automatically: If the user enters information that can be used
by the application to fill other fields, the application should do this. For example
in the section "payment within Switzerland" if you enter an IBAN number you do
not have to select the clearing number. But the clearing number is only filled
after you clicked on the button "Continue". This could be made more user-
friendly: As soon as an IBAN number was entered the application should fill out
the clearing number field.
• Inline help: The small "information icons" that give inline help are a very good
idea, but currently the amount of information is very limited. For example on the
orange payment slip there is an information icon for the Notifications ("Single
booking without advice" etc.). But it gives no explanation of the notification-
options, instead it suggest to consult the help section. A short information about
each type of notification would be much better. Or if the information gets too
long at least a direct link to the according section of the help section should be
provided. Example: Flickr "Privacy and Permissions" screen:
Mobile banking
Andreas Hoffmann mentioned in his talk, that UBS already provided mobile banking in
the past, but it didn't work. I assume that was in the time when WAP was state-of-the-
art. WAP was very cumbersome to use, and therefore it never took off. Bigger screens
with touch functionality and full keyboards instead of keypads make usage of mobile
applications much more convenient nowadays. Plus, a few years ago prices for web
access on the cell phone were exorbitant.
Scenarios and user tests are methods of User Centered Design. That's why I
recommend, especially for mobile applications, to familiarize yourself with User Centered
Design methods.
As soon as it's possible to pay with the cell phone, new applications can make the life of
the customer easier. Like for example a budgeting application that automatically keeps
track of all expenses and tries to assign the expenses to certain fields of the budget (e.g.
"food" or "entertainment"). Maybe it makes sense to cooperate with some application
developer who has already knowledge in the field of budget planning applications. Like
for example Mint, which Andreas Hoffmann mentioned on one of his slides.
Summary
This whitepaper shows some possible uses of the Web 2.0 concept for UBS. UBS e-
banking should concentrate more on communication with the customer and add more
personal elements. Web 2.0 applications like Twitter are a huge chance for authentic
customer service not only for the e-banking application but for the whole bank. Current
design patterns from the web should be adapted to make UBS e-banking more user-
friendly. User Centered Design is presented as a good way to improve the usability of
the desktop e-banking application and as an essential part for designing a mobile e-
banking application. Finally some principles for designing a mobile banking application
are explained.