It's time to invent the future of mobile banking. We can begin by recognizing that people-commuters, business travelers, moms on the go-work differently and with different goals when they bank on their mobile devices.
Of course, banks could continue to chip away at the seemingly endless process of replicating the desktop experience on the Smartphone. You can continue to ask designers and technologists to reduce individual screens and workflows to make them iPhone- and Blackberry-friendly. But mobile devices are an entirely different channel from the Internet. And the shrink-to-fit mentality ignores the real experience of mobile banking. By bringing research and design into the earliest phases of development, we can innovate.
Imagine the following: instead of offering a miniature, redundant version of desktop banking, banks could create a new collection of services for mobile banking that are designed specifically to support the real needs of busy people. Too often, mobile banking is viewed as a subset of functions available through the bank's Website: checking balances, locating an ATM, transferring funds, paying bills. Feature parity may be a valid starting point, but in most instances, it is also the end-point, stifling innovation as a "good-enough" attitude takes root. Only within a formal design process can designers, researchers, stakeholders and customers move beyond what currently exists to identify what is necessary and desirable for the channel.
Consider how, in 1998, MBNA (now part of Bank of America) leapt to the leading edge of online financial services by listening to design researchers and allowing them to innovate. MBNA set out simply to present customers with an online version of the monthly credit card statement. However, before any design or development took place, design researchers interviewed and observed customers.
The researchers discovered that customers did not need or want online statements; they wanted to see up-to-the-minute account activity online. The technology existed, but no one had thought to deploy it for this purpose. MBNA became the first to provide a convenience that changed the way customers could manage their spending.
This example highlights the reality: neither users nor designers alone can create the best next generation of a product.
Users and stakeholders are not designers, but they are an integral part of the design process. On their own, they can rarely offer specifics about what they want in a new product. "Faster, cheaper, lighter, with more features" is about the extent of most requirement documents. True innovation occurs not from asking people, but from observing them as they go about their daily activities. By studying people across a wide range of behaviors, designers can create a holistic, realistic picture of how financial information and transactions weave themselves throughout the course of a person's day. This is where innovative discoveries are made that can lead to advances in mobile banking.
So why not skip all the research, get a group of creative types in a room, and have them dream up the latest and greatest? After all, isn't brainstorming the way to create something that does not yet exist? While some great ideas may come in a flash of insight, brainstorming tends to be impractical. It generates many more worthless concepts than profitable innovations, and it can send an entire, enthusiastic team down the wrong path.
Indeed, without research, how will you even know which ideas are answering real user needs? Research grounds inspiration in evidence and points the way toward solutions that can be built.
Research-based design creates a more exact understanding of the needs of specific user types based on their activities and goals. Most financial Websites offer a plethora of features to accommodate a wide range of users, but phone apps can be customized to best fit a certain type of user.
For example, the "road warrior" travels light often without access to her laptop, yet she might need to pay a credit card while on the go. The "urban explorer" uses his phone for everything. Accustomed to data feeds like RSS and Twitter, he may want his financial information served up in a similar fashion. The "commuter" with 45 minutes of travel time to kill, could make use of in-depth analysis of his financial status, complete with data visualizations optimized for the small screen of a mobile device.
Designer-led collaboration yields novel designs that bridge the boundaries between what exists and what could exist, and this research need not extend the development period or break the bank.
Designers can sketch concepts quickly and test them with users during a rapid, iterative, design phase that leads product innovation and development from concept through early workflows to polished screen designs. Moreover, this process includes prototyping and testing to ensure that when the application hits the market, it will truly excite consumers and generate business for the institution.
Mobile devices offer countless, as yet unimagined ways to revolutionize banking. What happens on the desk should stay on the desk. Let's focus our attention on what's possible on the road, in trains, airports, doctors' offices, and anywhere else consumers need to get on with the business of living.
Kipp Lynch, is principal, research and strategy and Mark Ziegler is a principal, user experience, at Electronic Ink, an international design consultancy.
