BMO
The ThinkBank microsite is a design sprint conducted for BMO that focused on creating an empathetic design solution to help international students feel connected and confident in choosing a bank and products that fit their needs.
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Problem
Setting up a life in a new country can be a daunting process for international students, especially when they lack a network or have a limited network.
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Challenge
How might we provide recommendations with the same level of impact as a mom or a friend?
Project details
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Duration
5 days
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Role
Research, Content & Assets
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Team
Bryan Li
John Lutoslawski
Reeshni Asokan
Sarah Lam
Research
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
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Targeted to a company’s new campaign or product
Lives outside the company’s main URL
It’s temporary: lives 2-3 months
Allows companies to explore new ideas and strategies without being held back by guidelines stipulated by the main site
Can be one or more pages, but is smaller than a traditional website
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Short, simple and informative
Define clear engagement points
Link back to the parent site
Have users participate
Center the experience around the users
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Interview being conducted to gain insights into the behaviours, motivations, and pain points of users surrounding both finding a bank and banking in Canada.
Interview insights focused on students experiencing language barriers, feeling alone and desiring simplicity.
Persona
Focusing on common experiences, I created a user personas that helped guide the product tone.
Meet Hatsu. He is focused on finding a bank that is familiar serving clients who speak various languages and that makes him comfortable.
Storyboard
Overwhelmed by options, Hatsu lands on the microsite that shows international students like him who have successfully used ThinkBank’s products and services.
Experience map
Banking sites all look the same and offer similar products. It is important to develop a site that reaches international students on a deeper level.
Sketches
We did several rounds of Crazy 8 sketches and began to develop wireframes. After dot voting and sharing our ideas with BMO executives, this was our chosen concept: a microsite which enables international students to share their stories, favourite products and connect with advisors.
High Fidelity Prototype
Since BMO requested a mobile microsite, we created a mobile version of the wireframes using Sketch. Following the creation of the prototype, we conducted user testing.
User feedback indicated the site created an immediate sense of community. Users also appreciated language selection capabilities and provided UI critiques.
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Key Learnings
Working within the time constraint of five days with four other designers proved challenging, since we have not worked together previously and often had conflicting ideas. We used dot voting repeatedly so that we could make decisions quickly and continue moving forward. This also required that we trust our teammates and release control. Although the final product was not necessarily pretty, it was a privilege to have worked within company brand constraints and ideate on possible ways to approach the problem. We successfully presented our solution to a panel of executives on day five of the project. BMO was happy to see how we placed newcomers first, before the product. We also had clear CTAs and a consistent visual language throughout the microsite.
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Next steps
From a business standpoint, we should consider whether it is ethical to incentivize users to leave their stories. In order to spread the message about the microsite and reach our target user, it may be appropriate to conduct marketing campaigns on college and university campuses. Visually, I want to continue to polish the UI of the product, so that it reads as more current and engaging to newcomers.