HUMAN-CENTERED INNOVATION WORKSHOP
The challenge
The bank was losing market share to the competition because its Merchant Services application was too long and cumbersome. Business owners didn’t want to “apply,” they wanted to just “sign up” and start taking credit card payments. The disconnect? The bank’s underwriting group’s risk stance to treat every small business like the next big box retailer.
The goal
Shorten the application and keep customers engaged.
The how
My team brought together a multifunctional group—including product management, technology, design, research, and underwriting—for a one-day Design Thinking workshop to redesign the Merchant Services application experience.
During introductions, we asked everyone to share their hope for the day. An underwriter, arms crossed, said, “My hope is that nothing bad happens.” My facilitation acumen would be put to the test.
In the workshop, we asked everyone to get curious and play the role of a designer, putting their functional area expertise to the side.
The challenge posed to the group was:
How might we streamline the Merchant Services application while ensuring risk mitigation for the bank?
As we worked through the design challenge, we also illuminated and interrogated our lens around risk.
The result
Workshop participants collaborated to shorten the application by more than 50% which grew market share 23% in year one. Including underwriting in problem solving shifted their stance from the “office of no” to enthusiastic collaborators who could embrace new possibilities.
managing finances ethnography for product development
The challenge
To keep up with incumbents and new competitors, a bank was planning to invest heavily in creating digital budgeting tools for their customers. Though they had some assumptions about what would be helpful, they wanted more insight into what their customers actually needed.
The goal
Create budgeting tools that customers actually adopted and found valuable.
The how
My team broadened the scope of inquiry and examined how people actually managed their finances through ethnographic research. We found that, overwhelmingly, people did not keep a formal budget nor had a strong desire to devote time to slicing and dicing their spending. Instead, they were much more interested in tracking their finances via online banking tools and adjusting accordingly.
The result
Senior executives realized that their assumptions about what customers wanted and actual human behavior were in conflict. Simplicity and automation became the strategic guiding principles for all budgeting tool initiatives moving forward. Customer-friendly approaches like “what’s left?” replaced down-to-the-penny accuracy.
retirement planning ethnography for marketing communications strategy
The challenge
The marketing department at a major bank developed a digital tool to help the bank’s customers see how long their money would last in retirement. During testing, the negative reactions came flooding in, the most common of which was, “So, my bank is telling me when it’s time to die.”
The goal
Redesign the tool to meet customers wherever they were on their retirement planning journey.
The how
We conducted ethnographic research with people five years before retirement and five years into retirement. We had them map a timeline of how they’ve approached retirement over the course of their lives and asked them to create photo collages of both their ideal and expected visions of retirement.
We learned that people’s overall approaches fell into three distinct segments:
1. Maximizers: Those who were savvy about saving and investing and tended to enjoy the topic of financial management.
2. Poolers: Those who were financially responsible, but risk averse and confused about how to prioritize multiple, and sometimes competing, financial goals.
3. Reactors: Those who find themselves living on the edge and dealing with the consequences of potential financial instability.
The result
Researcher showed that bankers (surprise!) over indexed on tools that would appeal only to the Maximizers. Triangulation with quantitative behavioral data revealed that our largest and most promising segment to target was the Poolers, who wanted help sorting out multiple priorities while keeping their risk exposure on the lower side.
Now the bank provides retirement planning pathways that meet customers where they are and leads them toward information that can truly help them versus making them feel that they weren’t where “we” thought they should be. All in all, a much more user-centered, friendly, and helpful approach.
CULTURE & STRATEGY ALIGNMENT
The challenge
A philanthropic organization supporting children with dyslexia came to my organization for a much-needed website redesign.
The goal
Create a site that would better serve the needs of parents, educators, and medical professionals.
The how
We conducted interviews with mothers (the primary ones dealing with their kid’s learning differences), educators, and health care professionals.
We also conducted stakeholder interviews with the members of the non profit. We were struck by the language they used to describe the mothers they served: “rabid,” “aggressive,” and “angry.” The negative feelings they expressed toward their most important customers were preventing them from fulfilling their mission of helping kids with learning disabilities.
The result
We recommended the organization pause the website redesign until they looked more closely at their relationship to and empathy for their key users: the mothers. At first, the organization was shocked by our recommendation, but soon realized that this root issue needed to be addressed and courageously took on the work of tackling their cultural challenges and misalignment with one of their core constituents.