Know Your Customer
Streamlined Regulatory Onboarding
In my capacity as the lead product designer, I undertook the pivotal role of redefining the user experience for an integrated enterprise onboarding app. My responsibilities extended to deciphering user needs, translating intricate business requirements into intuitive designs, and orchestrating seamless collaboration with cross-functional teams to bring about a cohesive user journey.
To achieve this, I harnessed a comprehensive set of design tools, relying on Figma for wireframing and prototyping, Sketch for detailed interface design, and various user testing platforms for comprehensive feedback integration. This multifaceted approach allowed me to address both the technical and user-centric aspects of the project.
Working in tandem with a dynamic team comprising product managers, developers, and compliance experts, I endeavored to align design decisions with technical feasibility and the stringent regulatory requirements inherent in the enterprise landscape.
It All Starts From Research
Our project centered around elevating the user experience of an enterprise onboarding app, a critical component in navigating regulatory constraints and facilitating robust identity verification. The existing process was fraught with complexities, leading to user frustration and potential compliance issues. The overarching goal was clear: design an integrated solution that not only streamlined identity verification but also adhered to the ever-evolving regulatory landscape.
Our journey commenced with a comprehensive research phase. User interviews were conducted to ascertain pain points, a competitive analysis was performed to glean best practices, and collaboration with compliance experts provided a nuanced understanding of regulatory intricacies. This foundation of insights allowed us to craft user personas, wireframes, and high-fidelity designs that laid the groundwork for a comprehensive design system ensuring consistency throughout the app.
The iterative nature of our design process was underscored by frequent user testing and feedback loops, enabling us to refine the user experience iteratively. This collaborative approach was not limited to design and development teams but extended to compliance experts from the project's inception, ensuring that the final product seamlessly integrated user needs with regulatory standards.
Know Your Customer
Our minimum viable product (MVP) focused on simplifying the onboarding flow, incorporating step-by-step guidance, robust identity verification processes, and real-time compliance checks. Key performance indicators (KPIs) were meticulously selected, encompassing user completion rates, onboarding duration, and adherence to compliance standards.
In reflection, the project underscored the paramount importance of collaboration and iterative design. From our research-driven approach to the final MVP, every step was guided by a commitment to excellence in both user experience and regulatory compliance.
In conclusion, I am proud to have led the transformation of the enterprise onboarding app, enhancing user experience, and ensuring seamless compliance with regulatory constraints. This project exemplifies my ability to navigate complex design challenges and deliver solutions that meet both user and business requirements.
Product Description
Know Your Customer (KYC) is an integrated enterprise application impacting all lines of business at the bank. In order to further improve upon the compliance modernization journey, KYC transitioned from using a platform as a service to becoming a full stack web app. The redesigned KYC onboarding experience focuses on removing friction, increasing frontline and back office efficiency, and ultimately serving our clients more successfully and delightfully.
As the lead UI/UX designer, I conducted user research, created user flows, designed fully interactive prototypes, utilized branding resources, assisted user stories with UX insight + architecture, and owned the hand off to development while iterating throughout.
Problem + Research
In the previous version of KYC, the onboarding process was inefficient, time-consuming, and requires filling out forms manually. For this project, the team was focused on the frontline and back office experience and productivity, operational efficiency, and regulations. Generally, we wanted to redesign the experience to remove friction and bolster how we handle risk. With no prior domain knowledge, I sat down with users and led user research workshops to discover the intricacies of a very complicated, ever-changing logic driven compliance and regulatory process.
Painpoints:
#1. The client onboarding process is cumbersome and could detract from a positive first (republic) impression
#2. User must perform more clicks and actions than needed
#3. User must navigate through the flow in a predefined order and work with non-required screens
#4. Lacking conditional logic
#5. Application bottlenecks in performance
#6. Not responsive to different browser widths and the many devices the bank uses.
#7. Reliant on non-native application and it’s functionality
#8. Lack of transparency on requirements and status
Defining Usability Heuristics
Visibility of system status
Dashboard for all users showing transparent view on KYC status and description plus other customizable important details. Users and clients stay informed about the process and systemically triggered notifications provide appropriate feedback.
Match between system and the real world
KYC is a complicated legal process, however, we made sure to check in with users on text copy to use their language. Additionally, we tailored the application flow to how the users want to complete a workflow.
User control and freedom
Multiple ways of doing the same thing whether it be a certain workflow, creating a KYC, or managing an existing record. The users have the ability to save and come back to a KYC at any time.
Consistency and standards
Utilized FRB branding to create a smooth transition to KYC plus instill trust and security in using the application.
Error prevention
Warning messages and pop up prompts are utilized for destructive or submitting actions.
Recognition rather than recall
Global menu to always allow ability to search, reach one’s dashboard, or receive support. Divide KYC profile into easily identifiable sections and subsections.
Flexibility and efficiency of use
Use conditional logic to only show the required questions out of 1000+ total question possibilities. Advanced users have capability to tab through all KYC profile questions. Dashboard have customizable columns and views.
Aesthetic and minimalist design
Tooltips are included for important, but succinct information needed to complete task or assist in answering a question. The left pane with required uploads are dynamic based off of triggers.
Help users recognize and recover from errors
Inline error messaging precisely express the problem in plain language and constructively suggest a solution.
Help and documentation
Support info for each line of business is available at any point in the flow and training/onboarding videos are provided for a more in-depth walkthrough in case users become stuck.
Know Your Customer
Dashboard
Allowing the ability for the user to personalize their experience by customizing columns, sorting, and display the information that is prevalent to them was key for tailored experience. Users can now easily see a transparent view of a KYC and its status (painpoint #8) plus have access to the actions they're entitled to take (painpoint #2)
The new KYC profile saves the user time by allowing them to navigate through the flow in whatever order they’d like (painpoint #3), and includes conditional logic to simplify the onboarding process (painpoint #1, #4). With some complicated examples of KYCs including over 200 questions, performance can be affected. Talking with developers, we handled this by presenting the KYC in a single view (painpoint #5). Combined with a loading animation, the one-time load was much more well received than having multiple pages to go through a KYC (painpoint #1), plus the added benefit of having everything needed in one view without additional clicks (painpoint #2).
Profile
KYC Direkt needed an extensible solution for smaller browser widths, edge cases, and different scenarios. I created a responsive framework for the profile and dashboard that increase the usability on different devices users have at the bank (painpoint #6)
Admin Console
Having full control over the KYC application was critical for more efficient policy releases (painpoint #7). The solution was to provide a simple way for the back office to publish, edit, or move questions on KYC to ‘self-service’ policy changes and cut down on development backlog.
Measuring Success
Provide extraordinary service: Decreased task completion time to help users succeed
Move forward, move fast: More efficiently onboarded clients to help increase our NPS
Grow: Streamlined implementation of rules and policy while decreasing user error rate
Have fun: Created a pleasant usable experience that delivers delight during a tedious time
Retrospective
Early decisions are exponentially more important than later ones. Before I was brought in, the initial project was developed as an admin solution that never involved the users or gathered requirements.
We went through the process all over again with a design thinking mindset, however, valuable time and resources were already lost. The bad news was that this process was not sustainable for the team in the long run. The good news is this gave me an amazing experience to be very hands on and enjoy the entire software development lifecycle.
In retrospect, I would have heavily leveraged the potential long term downsides of the existing framework with the executive stakeholders more early on. Intense user research and problem analysis is SO important up front, early, and often. Solutions need to be agile and fit the needs of the users.