Bank of the West - Upgrading Online Banking

The bank's online banking website had not been updated in years. It had an outdated design, used end-of-life technology, and was difficult to use. We led the design team, research, UX strategy, and user testing to upgrade and simplify the entire experience, partnering with product, engineering, and third-party developers to launch the redesigned site.

The Challenge

The site needed a major redesign coupled with a technology upgrade and rebranding. Several technical and practical challenges emerged, from third-party developer constraints to inadequate resource allocation. The outdated design and functionality resulted in poor customer experience, low account openings, and slow website performance.

The site was a generic implementation of Fiserv, the banking platform powering the service.

The Process

We began by adding key team members, including a senior UX designer and content editor, and partnered with the visual design group on rebranding. We focused first on the overall information architecture and the critical Account Overview page.

We then worked with the Fiserv technical team to understand platform constraints, what was possible, and what would be considered customization versus configuration. This was necessary to control costs and timeline.

A series of high-fidelity wireframe prototypes were created and tested with existing and prospective customers. The prototypes refined the customer experience, clarified priorities, communicated requirements to engineering, and provided a blueprint for the rebranded site. All content and customer messaging was updated with new communication added for improved servicing.

The Outcome

Bank of the West online banking saw greater adoption and overall satisfaction, generated more account openings, and increased usage of key functions such as paperless billing and bill pay.