Role of UX in Designing a Fintech App

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The Supremacy of Fintech

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“Fintech” is one of the most trending terms in the past year, both in Finance and Technology niches. It generally refers to the Utilization of the latest technology to enhance Financial products/services.

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The hype has increased for fintech mainly because of the economy it has built. The market value has risen to $1.5 trillion, which is greater than any bank that there is. Also, the consumers are empowered to handle their finance with greater ease. Within just a few years since its emergence, Fintech has an enormous impact on traditional banks. 

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This is what Fintech exactly does!

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It can basically offer everything that the traditional banks can, but at the comfort of sitting at your home or anywhere across the globe for that matter. It offers services such as - Personal Financial Management, Loans, Payments, Credit cards, Insurance, Investment, along with a digital bank account. With so many services in the touch of the screen, it’s no wonder why a major share of Fintech App users belong to ‘Gen-Z’! 

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Fintech Apps have gained so much popularity because of the advantages with which the services come along. For example, In an all-digital fintech platform like Monzo, the interest rates offered are much lower than the traditional banks. This is made possible due to the absence of overhead costs. In addition, the efficiency of the Fintech Apps in making the services personalized has also captivated the users.

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Designing a Fintech App could be challenging, owing to the complex topic that finance is. Yet, The reason why the users are delighted to handle finance is due to their in-app experience. The digital transformation alone has not made it possible for Fintech to gain its market. It is the Experience Transformation that has acted as the key.

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UX has been a game-changer in Fintech’s growth. It does a great job of aligning user satisfaction with business goals. But, What exactly are the cards played by UX? Let’s dig into it.

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What does it take for UX to have an impact on Fintech? 

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There are so many Fintech Apps out there in the market. But, there are only a considerable number of them in demand, and a whole lot of others failing. What exactly are the failing ones lack? - The right UX. What qualities of UX make this ultimate classification between apps? 

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Straightforward Approach:

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By making the user’s process simple and straightforward, they tend to be more drawn to use it for their future transactions. If a process is long, cut it down into step-by-step tasks. Making the tasks simple will help users perform their actions with lesser effort and greater experience.

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The race of attracting users in the Fintech industry is so high. Thus, a simple and efficient UX has become inevitable for maximum consumer satisfaction.

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Robinhood, a Trading & Investing App implemented a straightforward Interface to make Trading simple for the users.

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Clear & Simple Language:

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The world of finance has been perceived as complex chiefly due to the terms involved in it. The challenge for UX is to convert the complexity of these terms into simple, understandable terms, regardless of the user’s intellect.

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It is always safe to have a glossary of terms with their respective meaning. By referring to this, it would make the end-users easy to understand.

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A little Friction in Design won’t hurt:

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No, you did not mishear anything. While “Frictionless Design” is a mantra for UX designers, let us explain why this contradiction will actually be helpful.

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The extreme ease in the usability of Fintech App might result in committing mistakes with money. Adding a few more steps in certain actions such as transactions/payments help in preventing such mistakes. Confirming the actions, especially as it is related to money can never be complained.

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This might feel like disrupting smooth UX. But, at the end of the day, Users would feel safer to use the App and also get retained automatically. Overall- it’s a win-win situation for UX design.

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Letting the User Visualise:

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The data within the App should not overwhelm the users. Especially, Fintech App revolves around dealing with a lot of numbers. Comprehending these numbers could be easy for the users if they are presented by well-designed Visualization.

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Functionality alone is not sufficient- as the users are expecting more sophistication in the App as well. So the data insights presented to the users should not just scream-NUMBERS. It should be scalable, readable, and easy to understand for the users.

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Gamification to Engage:

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Better user behaviour is observed when complex financial processes are gamified. This has gained huge momentum among the youngsters and has greatly improved their financial literacy.

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Gamified UX designs have eliminated the burden of handling money and made it fun to do. Gamification exploits impulsive fast-thinking that enhances user behaviour.

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A great example of the implementation of Gamification in money handling is the tech giant - Google itself. The scratch cards strategy in their google pay app was greatly appreciated by users, making them use it over and over.

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Absolute Guide and Tips to design an ideal UX for a Fintech App: 

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Begin with addressing the Problem

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Identifying the problem that design could solve is always the first step. Firstly, To address a problem, understand the context of product usage and empathize. Design thinking approach can be implemented here to define the problem which could be solved. Only after knowing the problem can a designer start the research.

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The design thinking approach lets the designer see the issues through the customer’s eyes. Collaborating design thinking with user experience orientation is a great strategy for flexible product designing and new features scaling in a traditional FinTech environment.

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Get into the User’s Shoe

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Planning the app features is not the right move for addressing the problem. Instead, Focus on the User. What may seem like an insignificant issue to the banking officials may become a major inconvenience for the users.

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NeoBanks & its UX designers constantly want to create flawless Fintech products that address the user’s tasks. But, The user behavior cannot be exactly foreseen due to the diversity of age, gender, preferences, etc.

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Therefore, it is important to determine the user behaviour especially the areas they might find clueless. Mainly cause, Negative always outweighs the Positives in your Application.

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Identify Pain Points

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It is true that we all want to design an “ideal” User experience for the audience. However, due to the diversity of the users, even a single fault can overshadow every other perfect aspect of the Fintech App.

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This is exactly why it is important to Identify the Pain Points - To minimize the negative impact. The process of testing the product on users to identify the pain points is known as “Failure Mapping”. Performing Failure Mapping will get you a map of user experience problems to be fixed.

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A list of such pain points would help the designer fix the issues in UX design and enhance a better experience for users belonging to diversified demographics with different goals.

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Ideate the Features

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Based on the analyses in the previous steps, Ideating the features follows after identifying the pain points. In the design thinking process, ideation is the bridge between defining the problem and building a prototype. The ideating Phase is where we can generate as many ideas as possible in different combinations to choose the right solution.

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The right solutions are those that align the key user issues with the goals of the business. But, How to Ideate? There are several approaches to brainstorm and We have listed a few below:

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1. Crazy Eights: This is a famous sketching technique where designers can take a sheet of paper and divide it into 8 sections. The paper has to be filled with rough designs until the timer goes off. If this technique is done as a team, so many rough ideas can be generated, the best of which could be chosen to proceed.

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2. Brainwriting: Also a technique practiced as a team. Each member of the team should come up with three ideas and which will be passed on to the next person to develop and it goes on. This way, there will be everyone’s contribution in each design and numerous ideas could be generated.

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3. Mind Mapping: Developing ideas around the problem addressed is known as mind mapping. To do this, write down the central problem in the middle and draw lines out of it and compose solutions. This way, links between the derived solutions can be discovered. Also, sub-branches can be formed from key ideas.

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On your mark, Prototype, Test, Go!

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From the implementation of any of the brainstorming method given above, Ideas are generated based on the project goals. To bring our ideas into practice, we need to develop a prototype and test it on users. A prototype is the depiction of a design produced before the solution is finalized. It allows you and your customers to understand the product.

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To see how the solutions designed are successful and if the users find any problem using the product, Testing of the prototype is done. User-Behaviour is analyzed throughout to make future alterations to the product.

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The Emotional-Connect

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One has to deeply get this inside their heads - Design is not how the product looks, it is about how your users feel about the product.

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When designing an app that is going to handle money, remember that we are emotional beings, not economical. The emotional connection with the product will help it stay longer in the market. The success of the Fintech app depends on it too. Without the connection, no matter how amazing the marketing strategies are, the product won’t take off.

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There are plenty of ways to give users what they exactly want. Design thinking is one of them. A great UX design brings user’s love to your product but, keep in mind that UX is a never-ending process. With all that being said, We are happy to hold a big fat thumbs up to pave your way through the next generation of Fintech developments.

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Still confused? We are the right fit for your next fintech app. Talk with our fintech design experts!

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