American Bankers Association Redesign
Created new digital experience for ABA customers.
What is ABA?
The American Bankers Association is a trade association for the U.S. banking industry. ABA represents banks of all sizes and charters.
My Role
Working alongside a content strategist and a visual designer, I conducted user research and usability testing, designed wireframes, and presented design rationale to stakeholders.
Challenge
Help ABA define their digital strategy and shape the way they engage with their customers.
Design Approach
Discovery
To better understand ABA’s customers and their pain points, we gathered quantitative and qualitative data through surveys and interviews with stakeholders and ABA’s customers. This research also helped me understand the breadth of ABA’s audience, segment it by membership status and bank size, and create personas and journeys.
Ideation
Personas and journeys helped me empathize with ABA users as I started wireframing. The wireframes were done in Axure and over time I developed the Axure widget library for quick low-fidelity prototyping. I presented wireframes to ABA stakeholders, iterated using their feedback, and then conducted usability testing on selected wireframes.
Validation
We ran several moderated and unmoderated usability studies. Some of the studies were remote, and some were conducted during ABA conferences, where we could recruit a wide range of ABA customers. When we did a navigation study at ABA Annual Convention, we were able to gather feedback from 180 participants.
Implementation
ABA had sourced developers externally, so it was important to provide detailed annotations for wireframes and design comps. I used Annotations & Interactions pane in Axure to document all widget specifications.
Solution
Empowering Bankers
We created an information hub where bankers can find everything they need to know about their banking topic in one place. Each banking topic page provides a curated collection of useful links and information, including the latest news, training, events, current issues, policy analysis, and contact details of ABA experts, as well as a way to navigate to related topics.
Improved Navigation
I wanted to make sure ABA users can easily find the information they need. ABA’s website offers a wealth of information so we tested different navigation options, including a one-column dropdown menu and multi-column menu with grouping labels for menu links. ABA users preferred the simplicity of a one-column dropdown.
Bankers often use their phones to browse ABA’s site. To optimize their mobile navigation experience, we designed a mobile menu in a way that allows users to easily access content up to 3 levels down.
Fostering Relationships
ABA is a very customer-centric organization and they pride themselves in building close relationships with their members. We emphasized this by featuring ABA banking topic experts on relevant pages as well as placing a prominent Stay Connected banner, which allows users to sign up for newsletters on their banking topic or join a relevant working group.
Outcome
“Your new design makes it easier to access the info I need to succeed in my job.”
The launch of the redesigned website was a success. We received mostly positive feedback from ABA’s customers. Our strong delivery and design expertise prompted ABA to continue working with us on several other projects.