Redesigning a Banking Website

The EY Intuitive team worked with a Fortune 500 regional bank to create a modern, public website experience organized around user-needs-based navigation, ease of use and personalization.

How do we redesign a website experience to better mirror an in-person branch experience?

The bank had a dated and inconsistent public website that made it challenging for users to find what they were looking for or understand which products were best for them. Keeping in mind that this website’s main purpose was to market products to customers, we began our work to help bridge the gap between the online and in-person branch experience. One of this project’s leading-edge achievements was turning browsing for banking products into a personalized experience. We did this by:

• Restructuring the site’s information architecture with needs-based navigation
• Identifying products that fit users’ requirements
• Integrating articles that help users with their financial decisions

Needs-Based Navigation

A large part of this project consisted of restructuring the bank’s information architecture. We created action-oriented links to direct users to the right products based on their needs. This approach is different from traditional information architecture and allowed users to follow a more personalized path that included dynamically generated products and advice based on their areas of interest.

Guided Selling

Since in-person communication isn’t a viable marketing tool when users are looking at a website, we needed to come up with an online experience that mimicked the communication a customer would have at a branch. We were able to design an interactive experience that helps users decide which banking product is right for them: after clicking through and answering a few short questions, users are presented with a product that would satisfy their banking needs. Guided selling isn’t a foreign tool in online banking experiences, but we brought innovation by providing the reason why a product was identified. Including this feature helped to build trust between the client (via its site) and the user. Products acquired through guided selling are then flagged as “recommended” throughout the user’s experience.

Insightful Content

We also created an article hub for advice, guidance and education for users making financial decisions. Whether a user is looking into financing a home or establishing a retirement plan, there are article segments that allow for topic-based exploration. With articles relevant to all kinds of users, this section of the website brings personalization to a whole new level. We organized these articles by large financial decisions that are connected to a person’s life stage.

Modular Components

Before the redesign, the website consisted of a lot of content … but few templates to organize that content in. Stackable components were developed to assemble a page template based on content requirements. The bank has several products, and maintaining components in this way supports consistency of interaction as the website develops. Use of components also allows for easy stacking in responsive formats, so the user always sees the most efficient content layout.

Successful Outcomes

The redesigned website has become a fundamental part of the bank’s online presence. Its value goes beyond ease of use for the consumers by also creating an experience that the user finds personable and trustworthy.