UX Design
BBVA Mobile App, Your Bank Advisor In Hand.
Refreshing entire UI, simplifying accessibility for user to reach what they want. The previous BBVA mobile app has many inconvenient user-flows with blurry visual hierarchy. I redesigned three tasks based on user reviews in App Store.
BBVA is a global financial group present in 35 countries throughout the world, has more than 130,000 employees and serves 66 million customers. BBVA enjoys a solid leadership position in the Spanish market, is the largest financial institution in Mexico, and has leading franchises in South America, in the US Sunbelt region and in Turkey. The group also operates an extensive branch network worldwide. BBVA Group manages the different needs of acquisition of goods and contracting of services from the main geographical areas, which are: Argentina, Spain, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, United States, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Turkey, and Bolivia.
The BBVA platform serves to give life to the countless things that a group with a 160 year history and a presence in over 30 countries does. To do so, content is published on a daily basis in multiple formats (text, video, infographics, podcasts) that attempts to provide audiences of all kinds a closer view of the bank’s realities. In 2019, BBVA’s corporate website had over 21 million unique users and 55 million pageviews. Most of the traffic comes from Spain (26%), followed by Mexico (23%), Colombia (10%), Argentina (9%), the U.S. (5%) and other countries.
According to language usage analysis, Hispanics account for more than 50% of North American BBVA users, including 18% of Duo-lingo (who speaking English and Spanish). English speakers and the remaining Asians account for about 30%.
I opened a survey among my friends and counted the most frequently used mobile banking app functions, and the results corresponded to the BBVA banking APP one by one. It is not difficult to see through comparison that some commonly used functions are difficult to find in BBVA. For example, if user wants to deposit a check through BBVA, from login page to scan check page, user has to click 10 buttons to reach it. It follows that improving the efficiency of users in using these functions is an urgent matter.
I chose three banking apps, Amex, Chase and Discover, to compare advantages through visual and logical analysis.
American Express’ interface is very intuitive while expressing user information and transaction records. Each transaction is separated by big gap and grouped with same date.
Chase background is showing the user's local landscape pictures, which greatly improves the affinity and user-friendliness. Use different colors to distinguish profit and deficit, and remind user when and how much to pay monthly statement.
Discover’s account interface has a good visual hierarchy, user clearly find rewards, cash back bonus, and credit card balance. And key functions on the top page for user to check Spending Analyzer. User easily compares two different balances that last payment balance and future one.
Conclusion: Through the comparison, we can see that an excellent banking app not only needs to have a clear transaction record and visual hierarchy of functions, but also needs to incorporate user-friendliness through color selection and radius of the button's corner.
I interviewed three users who are using BBVA, and they respectively put forward their views on "transfer money", "pay monthly statement", and "deposit checks".
Interior Designer, Houston, TX
"I believes that if the "transfer money" can be found in the checking account, it will be more convenient for user. User can directly view your account information through the checking account page is a very good design."
Accountant, San Francisco, CA
"I hope the credit card page can be improved by changing hierarchy. It’s not easily to find credit payment button, every time I have to pay attention on navigation bar to look up options."
UX Designer, Chicago, IL
"The entire UI design is clean, but there are many unnecessary functions on the home page, and it is difficult for users to clearly find the page they want. The search bar is useless on each page, due to results are from website not in app itself."
BBVA users generally comment that some commonly used functions require a lot of steps to find, which is not good for functional software that is used repeatedly. Banking mobile app is like a bunch of keys. Users need to quickly find the correct key to unlock the door.
Improving user interface & Refining visual hierarchy
Bring users arriving easy and fresh pages, making sure they will not get lost in buttons and windows.
Changing the user-flow of main functions
Let users quickly find their destinations, easily and rigorously satisfying all user needs.
Ethan is an interior designer and a fan of acrylic painting. He usually paints some works, and his friends also like his works and buy one of them. Yesterday his friend bought a Sunflower painted by Ethan and gave him a check for $100.00. Ethan wants to deposit the check into his bank account conveniently.
Pain Point: BBVA bank closes on weekend and long distance.
Daniel is an accountant. He usually spends with a credit card, whether he watches movies, buys clothes, or even phone bills. A credit card is a way to cover all his payments. Daniel finds it very convenient to use a credit card, because every month he only needs to pay all statements at the end of the month.
Pain Point: It's risky and time-consuming to mail the payment.
Hao is a graphic designer. On weekdays, he likes to hangout with friends, have a drink after get off work or go to a delicious restaurant. Every time checks, Hao lets his friend pays for him first, and then transfer the money to his friends when back home. He’d like to avoid the trouble for the waiter to separate the order.
Pain Point: Hao doesn't have cash to split order with friend.