Barclays

I helped transition Barclays' design from external partners to a new in-house UX/UI capability for Barclays Mobile Banking, Barclaycard and Pingit, building the first mobile design language and UI kit. The in-house design operation grew from 10 to over 600 people.

I defined and delivered designs across Barclays' digital touch points, with a focus on the native mobile apps, and delivered features that supported growth from 3 million to 6.5 million+ active mobile banking users in under 12 months.

When I first joined the Barclays Mobile Banking design team, it was moving from an outsourced to an in-house design team, and all the design work previously done by a digital agency was being handed over.

Barclays' mobile design language was outdated. I was regularly tasked with UI exploration to bring in the latest design trends and rejuvenate Barclays' digital products: exploring, prototyping and defining new components, sub-brands, style guides, interaction patterns, icons and graphics, to a pixel perfect and AAA accessible standard.

I also worked regularly with the corporate identity and brand teams, keeping the digital products and the brand guidelines aligned.

I helped to establish and maintain a component library for the mobile design teams at Barclays.

With over a million active users, consistency, habitual behaviours and repeatable, easy to use patterns were key to a simple and effective experience.

Every new component proposed was subject to strict validation through user research, to make sure usability wasn't disrupted, value was being delivered to the customer, and visuals weren't being prioritised over usability.

Once validated, new components went live through regular, incremental updates rather than major overhauls, to minimise disruption and let users adapt to new patterns while still managing their finances without an issue.

Almost 30% of users who started a Barclays Mobile Banking (BMB) registration didn't complete it. Barclays wanted to understand why, reduce or remove the friction in the registration process, and increase the number of active users to support its wider digitalisation efforts.

The first step was to research and understand three things: where the friction points were in the registration flow, why exactly users weren't completing their registration, and how we could solve the problem without compromising app security. To answer them, I ran:

I began exploring solutions to the problems we'd identified, using two techniques.

Barclays' design ethos was that every solution had to be tested thoroughly and validated before going live. Letting people manage their money with ease matters. Once we had a recommended solution, the next step was user testing.

I started by bringing in our research partners EySeren to run a moderated user testing session with actual Barclays customers. Customers were invited to Barclays' HQ in Canary Wharf with a formal invitation letter, and paid as a thank you for taking part. EySeren tested a high-fidelity prototype, asked participants follow up questions, and produced a RAG report of their findings and recommended changes.

We weren't getting valid insights back from users.

Participants had been formally invited by Barclays to an intimidating skyscraper in central London. They had dressed up smart, gratefully accepted their payment, been welcomed with a coffee, escorted to the lift and up to the 23rd floor, and then we wanted them to tell us what wasn't so good about the solution they were testing.

The red carpet had been rolled out, customers were bedazzled, and it was introducing bias into the results. Everyone thought the solution was amazing, but was it true and honest feedback?

Aware of the bias, and to substantiate EySeren's insights, I ran my own guerrilla testing of the same solution in Manchester. I designed a roller banner, placed it outside a coffee shop, and asked people if they could spare five minutes in exchange for a free coffee. I ran over 30 rapid tests in one morning, where participants performed a task on the prototype and then filled in a quick questionnaire. It gave me unprepared, genuine feedback on both the concept and its usability.

Following the launch of Visa contactless payment and Apple Pay, Android Pay was released in early 2016. Unlike Apple, Android allowed contactless payments to be built into an app, as an extension of the app's functionality and experience rather than something standalone or baked into the device's operating system.

I ran a small discovery project to understand whether customers would want a Barclays-branded solution for Android Pay, which told the product team whether the project was worth running. It was. I presented my findings, the project was approved, and I designed and delivered it in full.

The output was B-Tap, the Android contactless payment solution by Barclays, letting customers make contactless payments using just their Android device and the Barclays Mobile Banking app.

Before joining the Mobile Banking team, I spent a year in the Barclays Innovation Team as a UX/UI Designer and Creative Consultant, designing early digital banking products and concepts across iOS, Android and web for Barclays and partner organisations such as Childline and Microsoft (Windows Phone), and producing video, animation, print and digital creative work in a small in-house team.