UX Design for Gild
View Live Site : gild.cards
Gild is an Fixed Deposit-backed secured credit card issued by SBM Bank (India) with digital gold
rewards.
- Unclear / incomplete definition resulted in need for extensive code rework, and increased development time and costs.
- Couldn't scale efficiently, as the project grows or new features are added, due to poor architecture.
- The codebase wasn't efficient enough to integrate with other systems and platforms, as the dev team had not studied the dependency.
- Stakeholders were dissatisfied due to poor commitment to deadlines, and the not-so-good
feedback leading to abandonment by potential customers.
- Very limited time and there was no budget for research.
- Absolutely no recognition for research or UX design.
- Transferring design assets and specifications to developers was quite challenging, as the tools and processes were not well-defined, leading to inconsistencies between design and implementation.
- Design team was not communicated of any changes to the product.
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Validation of the product
- With 15 people of existing users / representative users / SMEs / potential users
- Each session had a good mix of discovery and usability testing
- Got a better understanding of 'influencing factors' that decide users choice of a financial product like Gild, and also the product performance.
Identified that the product teams were under pressure for deliver quickly, and keep avoiding
design
sprints or even discussions. Convinced the product owner with the values a sprint can bring in
to
the product, and ran a design sprint with the entire team.
Additionally, this team helped us to convey the value of design sprints to other products and
teams.
Introduced and facilitated several 5 day design-sprints for this product, which was helpful to
quickly bring a structure to the design process.
The value was quickly realised not only by the PO / PM, but by the entire team.
More than anything, it enabled the team to actually DISCUSS various perspectives, and lot of
dark holes were sorted right then and there.
By using sprints, I could also condense the goals into bite-sized segments (prioritized along
with business and technology teams), that allowed the design team to focus on a specific aspect
without being overwhelmed. This helped th team to set clear milestones, and achieve them with
ease.
In each of the sprits focused on
- User journey mapping with representative / actual users, along with internal subject matter experts
- Brainstorming, and collecting perspectives and ideas from different people along with capabilities, opportunities and limitations.
- Facilitating between teams on what works best for the product
- Prototyping the designs and validating the prototype with people
- Collect feedback and feed the design forward.
In each sprint, we got multiple ideas and we ensured that 'Best of best' goes into the product, which actually fits the requirement best and does justice to the product and the investment. As they reaped the benefits with little extra time, the team integrated design sprints into the team's workflow which was a huge success.
- By the end of each sprint, teams had a clear direction, shared understanding, a valid prototype to immediately start work with.
- This alignment expedited development by 30%, diminishing the prospects of disputes and delays.
- Everyone's responsibilities were made clear with clear timelines, and that again contributed to cutting down the efforts.
- Potential risks and challenges were identified early in the process, cut down efforts by 20%.
- Additionally, feature prioritization facilitated the marketing team in crafting a more coherent narrative.
