Project X
A future vision of Bank of America’s brands all in one app
Project X is a future-state vision and an enterprise design solution for Bank of America. This vision combines all of the bank’s 5 mobile apps into one, delivering a personalized experience to each client, for each individual need.
My role
Principal designer. Co-own all visual design, wireframing, strategic direction, prototyping, storyboarding.
The team
2 UX Researchers
2 Principal Designers
2 Design Directors
The challenge
As the new Bank of America app takes shape & all lines of businesses are consolidated into a single app, it becomes evident that the app needs to provide a personalized digital experience – one that recognizes, adapts, and differentiates across each user’s digital journeys. (Think small business owners to savvy investor clients)
Additionally, the team was challenged at improving and evolving the bank’s enterprise design system. How do we streamline and modernize the design system? How do we transform brand/system guidelines that are currently catered to individual entities?
Background
Bank of America’s Chief Digital Executive presents a digital, future state vision to his B.O.D (Board of Directors) each year. The design team is hand-selected, typically with more senior roles leading the effort. This was my 3rd time selected for the initiative. In 2020, the team was tasked with creating a 3-year future vision of how the mobile banking app can be tailored for all various client types. In 2.5 months the team did the following:
Create XD Brief; data and insight gathering; initial design direction; ideation; build a narrative; define hero moments, write user stories; and develop features
Experience principles
Intuitive
Functional, familiar
Users can instinctively navigate their banking and investment accounts. Their mental models are reflected in the features, labels, visuals, and overall elements of the experience.
Fluid
Connected, natural
Features are organized recognizably and predictably. The experience feels fluid and natural because every section or screen has an obvious connection to the next.
Simple
Clean, consistent
Visuals are not distracting and there is not any unnecessary or irrelevant information that could prevent the user from completing their desired tasks. The experience only offers what is meaningful to the user.
Welcoming
Personal, inviting
Users are offered a friendly experience that feels customized to their needs. Experienced investors are met with familiar tools and functionalities while new investors are offered guidance and support.
Explore
Sketching & Wireframes: My wireframes derive from rapid sketching and idea gen. I start at a component level based on the feature set and then put the puzzle pieces together to produce screens. During this process, user stories and flows help direct a happy path that needs to be designed. I consider sketches as a good baseline wireframe before moving into high-fidelity designs.
The approach for this work was to “think Northstar”, elevate our status quo branding, and create UI that is modern. The overall designs would encompass, but evolve the bank’s current enterprise-wide design system, called Helix. Overall, I knew that to make this a completely personalized and customizable experience, I wanted to introduce multi-size widgets and compelling data visualization into the framework.
Sketching components
Wireframes to hi-fi design iterations
Final designs
The final prototype needed to: spotlight unique user profiles or “hybrid clients” that previously managed their money in different places across multiple apps; reflect an information architecture that matches known mental models; represent realistic solutions our users might expect three years from today; communicate that a “premium experience” is not dependent on wealth or income.
Lessons learned: The short timeframe can be a hurdle when fitting in research, discovery, and concept creation. We only had less than 2.5 months and these big yearly initiatives become a mad dash. Defining strategies with various chief digital executives and product owners can be a muddled process but the team did a good job at dividing and conquering. From a design perspective, merging various brands and lines of business into one cohesive vision, while attempting to elevate our robust design system was challenging. Thankfully I worked well with the other designer on this project, however, a lesson learned was not being able to take the time to sit and develop an initial style guide before diving into the various screens.
Final designs in collaboration with Principal Product Designer, Antonio Carusone
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