The challenge

The challenge was to create a seamless mobile experience that empowers Barclays customers to explore, learn, and invest on the Barclays mobile app. The goal was to grow the mobile app with more features and simplify complex investment journeys for novice and experienced investors.

My role

This was my first project when I joined Barclays in 2023 and I led the design for the new explore investment experience. I worked with a product squad for one year to deliver new digital journeys and grow the mobile app by following an iterative design process.

Understanding the business goals

The strategy team conduded a discovery research by interviewing a number of customers to identify how do they research investment options and make investment decisions. There wasn’t any investment discovery journey in the app which resulted in a negative NPS score.

Understanding the investment universe

In my first few weeks, I organized a series of interviews with senior stakeholders. My goal was to understand Barclays’ investment universt and what investment assets we offer. I also reviewed any recent qualitative and quantitative research studies to get an undestanding of the target audience and what work has been already delivered before I join the team.

Defining the UX strategy

When I’m part of an in-house product squad, I always work closely with the Product Owner to define the UX strategy and get an agreement on the project timelines. It’s very important to understand upfront the product vision, the goals, the constraints and how we’d measure both the user experience and the product success.

Every project is different and is very important to pick the right UX methods based on the project contraints, for example limited budget or time. I followed an iterative design process to identify the problems, ideate and test design solutions with customers before we move into the development stage.

Following an iterative design process

The objective was to design a new investment discovery experience and allow customers to search for investment assets in the Barclays app. To find the right solution to the above challenge I did the following activities:

• Create a user story map with the Product Owner to understand the user flow and outline the high level journey and the features. Make sure we consider any insights from the strategy research.
• Use FigJam to design detailed user flows and work with the product owner and the tech lead to identify any early challenges.
• Present my ideas to the team and senior stakeholders to get initial feedback. Present interactive prototypes to explain more complex ideas.
• Make design changes to accomodate team feedback. Present the designs to the weekly design team meeting and get feedback from other designers.

Great UX storytelling is key

When I share my designs with the team, I always set the context and explain the reason of the design decisions I made and back it up with evidence. This helps others understand my decision-making process and reduces potential pushback on my ideas.

As you can see, the design process wasn’t linear and I had to iterate the designs multiple times to make sure that I have captured the business requirements and my decisions where informed from the discovery research.

Testing with users to identify problems in the design

Once I designed the ideal user journey, the next step was to plan and conduct the first round of research. The main challenge was that we didn’t have any available user researcher for this project at this stage to carry out moderated customer interviews.

To ensure the journey could be tested within a tight deadline, I decided to conduct one round of unmoderated research using Usertesting.com. This approach allowed us to recruit participants quickly and test the designs as soon as possible. I worked with a UX writer to make sure I was using the right tone on voice on the designs.

After conducting the research, I prepared a presentation to share with stakeholders the findings along with any design recommendations.

Designing the north star vision

Product teams often break down the scope of work into smaller pieces to deliver it faster. However, for design, this approach doesn’t always work. Designers need to think about the end state first, covering all possible scenarios, and then scale it back to accommodate the needs of the product team. Good collaboration with the product team is essential to ensure that we deliver the right experience across multiple phases.

Working with the engineering team to make the vision reality

Even though a tech lead was involved early in the design process, now was the time to work more closely with the development team and follow their agile ways of working. I worked with a business analyst to add design tickets in the JIRA board and add screens on the user stories for the development team.

I gave developers access to the Figma file so they can inspect the designs and reviewed the UAT build multiple times to make sure the final screens were reflecting the design system standards.

Overcoming design challenges

• Technical Constraints: I collaborated closely with the development team to understand API capabilities and the available data. During implementation, I worked directly with front-end developers, conducting design reviews and providing CSS guidance to ensure the final build accurately reflected the designs and the design system standards.
• Domain Expertise: I worked closely with the investment team to understand the existing business logic and identify opportunities to improve internal processes.
• Balance design with internal constraints: I balanced creativity with internal constraints by getting risk and compliance approvals without compromising user experience. Based on the research insights, I ensured that every design decision aligned with regulatory requirements while remaining intuitive and user-friendly. Additionally, I prioritised accessibility by adhering to WCAG Level AA standards, ensuring the experience was inclusive for all users.

Finding investments made simple

The new explore investments experience gave customers the ability to explore new funds by showcasing the partners and industries involved. We surfaced the right information to help them learn and invest. We also introduce a new investment search where customers were able to expore the full asset range and use filters based on their needs.

Impact

• The new search experience increased the trading volume in the app by 46% and lead to an increase in asset searches, demonstrating the impact of user-centered design in driving engagement.
• Contributed to an investment trading increase of 54% on mobile.

Thinking about the future

The investment journeys are evolving into a central hub for trading and learning. By incorporating user feedback and adding new features, we’re building retention and loyalty on the platform with our customers.