Bank Linking Woes Turned Wins:
Crafting Aerosync's UI for Seamless Transactions
Role: Lead UX Researcher | Timeline: 6 weeks
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Skills:
Usability Testing
Participant Recruitment
Data Analysis
Research Planning
Survey Design
Data Visualization
Background.
Aeropay, a dynamic Chicago-based FinTech startup, spearheads seamless financial transactions through secure bank-to-bank (ACH) transfers. Striving to facilitate compliant, cashless, and contactless payments, Aeropay empowers businesses while granting customers the liberty to spend with ease.
In response to the evolving financial landscape, Aeropay introduced Aerosync, its proprietary bank aggregator. This innovative product serves as a pivotal bridge between users and their banking data. Bank aggregators, such as Aerosync, encompass diverse services geared toward gathering and processing banking data from multiple origins. These aggregators play various roles, including:
Enabling third-party applications to access specific banking data, such as accounts, transactions, balances, and statements.
Streamlining financial data into consolidated platforms, as seen in budgeting apps, providing users with comprehensive insights.
Challenge
The introduction of Aerosync marked a significant milestone for Aeropay's product offerings. Despite being relatively new, concerns arose due to historical patterns of user drop-off encountered while using other bank aggregators. This raised an immediate need to address potential issues affecting user engagement and retention within the Aerosync platform.
Goal: Identify and understand reasons for user drop-off and develop strategies to mitigate it
Methodology
I initiated the process by engaging with key stakeholders, Aerosync's development and implementation team, to gain insights into potential technical hurdles leading to user drop-off and analyze internal data. To comprehend user interactions with bank aggregators, I conducted a literature review, analyzed competitors, and audited Aerosync's flow. I then combined these secondary research findings with a user survey I designed, targeting friction and security preferences in Aerosync's flow.
As the lead and sole researcher for this project, my primary responsibility involved orchestrating the complete end-to-end research process, crafting a comprehensive survey, and closely collaborating with the cross-functional Aerosync implementation and development teams comprised of designers, developers, and product managers.
Gather Assumptions and Review Existing Research
Kicking things off, I engaged in one-on-one conversations with Aerosync team members. This allowed me to tap into their individual insights about the reasons behind past user drop-offs before confirming the group’s overall sentiments in a collective meeting. This collaborative approach gave me a more nuanced understanding of the product, user interactions, and potential technical stumbling blocks.
Considering the recency of the product’s launch, analytics were scarce. Although the Aerosync team drew from past experiences, interaction-based user data was absent. However, this challenge presented an exciting chance to pave the way for future metrics and user behavior tracking. It also steered me toward a treasure trove of existing research, addressing their concerns with a fresh perspective.
Research Planning
Using the insights I collected, I crafted a research plan outlining clear and achievable research objectives and questions. These were informed by the team's assumptions and viewpoints. Additionally, I identified these assumptions as aspects to verify through external secondary research.
To ensure a well-structured approach, I devised a project timeline that factored in all the intended goals. As the primary researcher, I considered the comprehensive scope and allocated time estimates, ultimately gauging that the research process would span around 6 weeks from start to finish.
Literature Review
Beyond addressing the primary research questions, the literature review played a vital role in confirming the existing assumptions of the Aerosync team concerning bank aggregators. The review was also aimed at clarifying the uncertainties that the designers held regarding aspects like the bank selection and landing pages. The review tackled questions such as:
Do customers who are familiar with the brand they're connecting to have higher connection success rates?
How important are convenience, security, cost, a product's features, and transparency to customers when compared to each other?
Should bank selection be displayed as a list or a grid?
My approach involved a thorough examination of credible sources, including McKinsey, NielsenIQ Label Insight, Forbes, and UX-focused blogs. I engaged in a two-step process for each article, reading it first for comprehension and then revisiting it to extract notes and quotes that would enrich the final research report and presentation. This process allowed me to synthesize insights from multiple sources to inform our project effectively.
Competitive Analysis
In the realm of competitive analysis, I examined six fellow financial institutions that incorporate bank aggregators in their product offerings within the payments industry. The process involved a comprehensive review of the main pages within their aggregation flows, deciphering the purpose of each page, and assessing how design choices might influence user behavior. The insights were then summarized and organized in an easily digestible Google Slides presentation, which showcased their best practices and communication strategies.
This analysis also compared the flow of each competitor against the industry benchmark established by the Financial Data Exchange's guidelines for third-party bank aggregators. To convey my findings effectively, I constructed individual assessments for each competitor's flow in the presentation. I employed screenshots to illustrate the bank linking process, highlighting UI elements that either boosted or detracted from their designs. I also documented their strengths and weaknesses and additionally shared video references or walkthrough links for the designers’ and developers' convenience. This approach allowed us to draw inspiration and insights from industry counterparts while optimizing our design choices for the Aerosync platform.
Aerosync Design Audit
Applying a similar methodology as the competitive analysis, I conducted a comprehensive Aerosync design audit. This audit encompassed both the in-production and in-development designs of Aeropay's two banking methods: OAuth and API. My assessment focused on the potential impact of design choices on user behavior. To provide a clear overview, I organized my findings in an easily digestible Google Slides presentation.
During my evaluation of each version's flow, I employed screenshots once again to visually guide through the bank linking process and pinpoint UI elements that contributed to or detracted from the user experience. My analysis culminated in a condensed set of recommendations aimed at refining the aggregation flow, along with the identification of design aspects that aligned with the FDX's recommendations. This comprehensive review and summary provided valuable insights to enhance the Aerosync platform and bolster its compatibility with industry standards.
Survey Design
Drawing insights from both the Aerosync team and my findings in secondary research, I designed a survey to address lingering questions about the user experience and validate the applicability of market standard recommendations to Aerosync. My survey design approach followed a funnel-like progression, starting broadly and gradually becoming more specific as questions advanced. After drafting the initial version, I sought feedback from product team members. Incorporating their input, I refined questions and reshaped the survey to ensure precise targeting of our desired insights.
Some of the survey questions were:
Please select all the pages from the flow that make you uncomfortable linking your bank account (Multi-Select)
Please explain what made you feel uncomfortable on the [page from previous question]. (Open Question)
Imagine you're connecting your own bank account to an app to make payments (i.e. Venmo, Cashapp, Aeropay). Please show what actions you would take to do that. At any point, if you don't feel comfortable linking your bank you can give up (Usability Question)
Leveraging the research recruitment platform Prolific, I curated a focused panel of 250 participants, filtering them through the platform's demographic screener and test builder. Among them, 115 participants met the criteria, ensuring familiarity with bank aggregators, aged 20-75, no alignment with exclusionary product personas, and no affiliation with Finance or Fintech sectors. These participants engaged with the primary Aerosync research studies on the Maze platform, with 95 successfully completing the surveys.
To optimize expenses, I further recruited 100 participants from Maze's existing panel, leveraging our available Maze credits. This additional group comprised U.S. residents aged 20-75, evenly distributed across genders.
Analysis and Synthesis
Upon collecting the survey data, my initial analysis involved reviewing the responses for each question within Maze, which served as the foundation for generating initial insights. Using Google Sheets, I methodically recorded and categorized each question, its type, responses, immediate observations, and insights drawn from the Maze survey. This organized approach allowed for seamless comparison regardless of question type. Building upon insights from the secondary research, I proceeded to synthesize information relevant to our research questions. This process involved combining survey results with existing knowledge to form comprehensive insights.
Impact:
The outcomes of this research report and presentation offered solutions to important questions our teams sought, aiming to enhance the bank linking experience and mitigate potential user drop-off. The recommendations were promptly integrated into the roadmap, and there was a request for additional research involving an A/B test to gauge the effectiveness of design enhancements. Upon integrating the new UX designs following the A/B test results, the team observed an initial ~3% rise in user connection rates within the first week of implementation, along with a diminished user drop-off in Aerosync.