Barclays Bank Tablet Banking App Research

Disclaimer: Some information is left out of this case study due to confidentiality.

At the end of 2015 Barclays wanted to know if building a native tablet banking app would be feasible. With limited resources at our disposal we embarked on a discovery process to define our hypotheses. We reviewed many market research reports relating to the digital landscape of banks in South Africa. We realised that tablet banking is a rather unique form-factor and usage behaviour differs from mobile and desktop banking. It may have to be positioned differently and perhaps have its own value proposition when compare to desktop banking and mobile app banking.

Hypothesis

Absa customers will benefit from a Personalised Financial Management Tool they can use wherever they are to help them make sound financial decisions and be in control of their finances.

Secondary research & Competitive analysis

• Research & collate data fro Columinate Reports
• Research & collate data fro Web Index Reports
• Competitive analysis of tablet banking landscape

We obtained  secondary quantitative data from market reports but we had to mine for it quite extensively. We managed to string together useful bits of insights and data that we could use to fuel our research. Along with this we also conducted a fairly surface level tablet app competitive analysis.

Persona development

• Created personas
• Created behavioural timelines to help us emphasise
• Solidified our hypothesis

With some research in hand we set out to create personas. Our personas were loosely based on previous research plus the new information at our disposal. Some were based on real people that we know. This helped us to emphasise and have healthy debates about who we’re designing for.

Customer interviews

• Created a test plan and testing objectives
• Designed interviews
• Designed a screener for recruiting company
• Coordinated with recruitment agency to get the right interview participants
• Facilitated the the interviews
• Presented finding to Barclays Exco members

My job was to coordinate the interviews. I also did all the facilitation while my colleague was responsible for scribing and observing. I interviewed 16 participants over 3 days. With 16 interviews my colleague and I set out to identify patterns and insights that we could use to further strengthen our design case for the tablet banking app.