Viewpoints heart User Experience in Banking

The importance of UI/UX in banking.

With the rise of digital banking and increased competition, banks with superior UI/UX strategy will gain a competitive edge. Is your institution keeping pace?

Online and mobile banking in the US has surged —

A 2023 survey shared by the editorial team at Forbes Advisor reported that 78% of Americans prefer to bank digitally, via web or mobile applications.

U.S. consumer banking statistics 2023, Forbes Advisor, March 24, 2023.

Accordingly, those US banks with strong UX design stand to gain an advantage to grow market share. Superior experiences will help attract new, digitally-savvy customers in an increasingly competitive space.

User Interface (UI) deals with the product's visual and interactive elements like buttons and layout. User Experience (UX) ensures that a product is easy, efficient, and enjoyable to use, focusing on how users interact with it. Together, these critical design elements create a seamless, intuitive and engaging user experience.

Why is this so critical for financial institutions? In digital banking, a superior UI/UX strategy will enhance customer trust, satisfaction and retention by making navigation easy, seamless and secure. Ease of use will build confidence in your institution's reliability, convey modernity and actually improve the overall service perception — far beyond the digital experience. 

Let’s look at a few specific benefits along with the key tactics and considerations of each, that can support an effective UI/UX strategy.

Enhance user trust and security

For US banking institutions, the use of strong security measures to protect customer information and enhance user trust is simply essential. There are a number of specific elements that must be incorporated. Things like —

  1. Require strong passwords alongside the use of additional layers of customer protection like multi-factor authentication to safeguard against unauthorized access 
  2. Use SSL/TLS encryption, in order to protect user data in transit
  3. Provide straightforward and transparent privacy policies and terms of service
  4. Regularly test, audit and report all security measures in place to identify and fix vulnerabilities

A combination of effective UI/UX design and overt security measures protects users as well as strengthens their trust in the institution and services at large, leading to increased customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty.

Improve accessibility and inclusivity

Accessibility and inclusivity refers to specific design and development of website and mobile applications to be usable by people with disabilities, allowing them to perceive, understand, navigate and interact with digital properties effectively. There are specific ADA regulations that provide standards for accessibility.

Key accessibility considerations include —

  1. Navigation options like jump menus to allow users to navigate a digital property using only a keyboard or mouse along with navigation support to help users know where they are and where they can go next
  2. Use of semantic HTML (image tags or clear and accurate captions) for all media so that screen readers can correctly interpret the page structure to read it to visually impaired users; consider full text transcripts for any audio content
  3. Use of color contrast techniques to ensure text is readable against the background by using proper contrast ratios
  4. Follow standard font sizing, glyph sizing and relative unit requirements as outlined by ADA and avoid content that blinks or flashes
  5. Include clear, concise and actionable error messages so a user can quickly resolve any issue and continue on their journey

The latest trends

In addition to the above best practices, the latest innovations US financial institutions are leaning into to help increase user engagement and satisfaction incorporate more traditional digital retail ideas.

Increase user engagement, satisfaction and retention

User engagement, satisfaction and retention are key to the success of any digital product. For US banks, these metrics are vital to customer confidence. Some of the UI/UX tactics you should deploy to ensure improved engagement, satisfaction and retention include —

  1. Strive for intuitive navigation in design. The idea is to make it easy, and intuitive, for users to find information and move throughout the website or app with ease and without confusion
  2. Enhance the visual appeal of your site and application by incorporating aesthetic elements that make them engaging and attractive to users. Ensure that these design choices align with your brand identity and other digital properties to create a cohesive experience
  3. Deploy a responsive design approach to address the range of devices/sizes that will utilize your platform, enabling automatic adaption to the screen size, whether the content is viewed on a tablet, phone, desktop or watch
  4. Utilize clear CTAs to help guide users seamlessly toward specific actions and options as they navigate transactions

More personalized experiences

Financial institutions are aggressively working to win new customers and retain existing ones by constant innovation, building hyper-personalized experiences that today’s customers both want and expect. The key is leveraging and interpreting transaction data, real time and on repeat, in order to create actionable data and insights. This allows for more personalization, driving more engagement and improving each customer’s individual experience.

The right blend of high tech and high touch

Recent trends reveal the use of advanced AI and personalized digital tools to help create seamless, interactive experiences that mimic human support. Many US banks are investing in AI-powered chatbots for instant assistance while also enhancing real-person services through integrated connection points. 

This approach ensures that customers can experience efficient, automated services while still feeling valued through both human-like and human interactions, ultimately adding to high engagement scores and boosting satisfaction.

The takeaway.

Prioritizing user-centric design principles allows your institution to stand out from competitors, fostering user satisfaction and retention by meeting the expectations of today’s digitally driven customers. By creating a cohesive and consistent experience across digital properties you will be able to best meet the needs of existing and new customers.

Lovely People is here to help you continually optimize experiences, while increasing customer loyalty. Let’s talk.