What did we do for this client?
Design | User Interface (UI) | User Experience (UX) | Illustration | Animation | Strategy
Redesigned mobile app UI UX connected this brand to it’s user base.
Promoted as the “Uber for Mobile Banking,” the original Abra concept was to enable a network of worldwide personal tellers transferring funds via smartphone.
When user adoption and growth numbers didn’t grow, analysis pointed to two areas. First, the UX felt clunky, with confusing redundancies and overly complicated steps. Secondly, the UI lacked polish. The dated styling failed to capture users that took a look.
Mobile apps need excellent UI/UX to win customers and compete.
We knew immediately that the UX and UI would need to be rethought in order for the app to compete. The existing experience design felt dated and unpolished.
Some immediate challenges to solve included:
- Confusing user paths
- Conflicting options to accomplish tasks
- Inconsistent UI, lack of visual hierarchy
- Disconnected visual cues and priorities
This app relies on capturing the young user/early-adopter target demographic, an audience that expects professional level experiences and has no incentive to wait for new brands to mature.
The Spark Process is based on real data and strategic analysis. (Plus designer magic.)
Ideally we would be part of the UX design process from the beginning. Revamping major experience structure in mid-development is much more difficult (and costly!) In this case, much of the engineering was in place and could not be readily changed.
That said, we still implemented as many best practice measures as possible. We started with painstakingly breaking down every function and every pathway, refining to achieve the most elegant pathway technically available. See the visuals; we plot every single path and every possible contingency. We break it. Then we start again.
Simplification was the goal, but how to create a UX that would allow most users to accomplish most tasks, simply and intuitively? First we had to go back and understand our target audience. We knew what the product offered, but what did the users want? How did they think about this kind of product? We decided to ask them. We engaged user focus groups to refine the work.
Brand Differentiation by Injecting Personality.
Tightening up the experience is part of the solution, but the look and feel affects not only the app’s success, but help establish and support the entire brand.
We wanted this app to look great to it’s target. In addition to focus groups, we did market analyses and applied our own knowledge of trends and styles. Where the original style was bland and utilitarian, we introduced bold color filled screens, large text interactions and updated styling. We edited out extraneous features and focused on the way users really use apps, moving lesser needed features into easily accessible, yet out of the way drawers.
In addition, we looked for ways to introduce personality and fun. This audience appreciates a brand that can be professional but also not take itself overly serious. As we developed this brand tone, we carefully crafted how to “speak” to the users and we looked for ways to inject some fun, including this animated intro screen.