Redesigning the PayDay Investor App Experience
November 2, 2020

ARM One Mobile App: Creating an omnichannel experience across ARM’s businesses.

My Role:

I was the design lead throughout the project cycle and was fully responsible for discovery, strategy, research, prototyping and visual design. I also facilitated and collaborated with the business and development teams to brainstorm ideas and solve complex business problems.

Client:

ARM Holding Company

Project Duration:

H1 2021

Project Scope:

Mobile application

Project Summary

ARM has embarked on a journey to accelerate its unified retail and digital strategy by focusing on the unification of its technology landscape which will begin by developing an MVP for a unified mobile app.

ARM had to begin to shift towards satisfying customer needs by creating an omnichannel experience for all retail customers across ARM’s businesses.
To achieve this, ARM had to integrate the processes, technologies and data of aspects of the value chain where regulations permit, into a unified front end for ARM.

The Challenge

Due to the pandemic and the ever-evolving business landscape, ARM has been compelled to adapt: 

  • Portfolio values are increasingly volatile and forecasts, models, assumptions and reporting are being reviewed and potentially revised to meet the needs of the younger more dynamic generation of investors
  • ARM needs to offer its customers a single onboarding channel for its Pensions, Investment Management and Stock trading businesses while creating cross-selling opportunities
  • The Customers are evolving and are being forced to adopt digital platforms with visually appealing User Experiences and Interfaces

The Solution

This was definitely not a single iteration process—we had to account for every team and continual feedback from leadership. We also did remote testing which helped to make sure we were solving actual problems for our customers. Whether it was a screen prototype, customer interview or a online surveys, these weekly sessions helped us to validate, test ideas and iterate quickly.

  1. We started by looking into data to understand our existing users better, we gathered channel activity statistics from the existing digital channels to help us gain insights on the most used features. 
  2. Next, we engaged in a groupwide ideation exercise with some staff and customers using viability versus feasibility metrics to identify features that will return the highest value within the shortest time. A prioritization matrix was a result of this exercise.
  3. Afterwards, I led the ideation exercises involving the Product Owner, Business Analysts, Compliance Managers, Software Engineers and we came up with user flows and customer journeys for several of the features.
  4. From the User flows, my team proceeded to rapidly designed high fidelity prototypes on a feature by feature basis.
  5. We then proceeded to test and validate this prototypes with stakeholders and users and reiterated where necessary.

Armed with data and the knowledge of design thinking, I conducted Usability testing and Interviews.

The Goal of the User Research activity

1. To understand our current and potential Users' needs and context
2. To generate solutions to existing issues with our current touchpoints 

Research Methodology 

  • Personas: We used a Needs based segmentation, which allowed us to identify and target segments according to behavioral traits and unmet needs instead of only age and income.
  • Online Surveys: I composed a mix of open and closed questions that were centered around Contextual inquiry and understanding the average user's mindset. I structured the questions by sandwiching the more complex questions between general questions at the beginning and at the end to keep the subjects engaged.
  • Moderated Usability Testing: I conducted the Usability testing with a High Fidelity Figma prototype.  We tested the new Registration, Onboarding, Account Linking and Dashboard features with 12 existing customers cut across various demographics and income level. The testing exercise was moderated via Microsoft Teams.

Figma: Visual Design, Prototyping, Developer Handoff

Miro: User Flows

Microsoft PowerBI: Metric Analysis

Teams, Kahoot:  Usability Testing,  User interviews

Typeform: Online survey

Airtable: Online Survey, Metric Analysis

The Result

This MVP went live in Q4 2021, adoption was really high with rave reviews from users and there was also an impressive upturn in revenue and Assets Under Management.

Learnings

From this project, I gained valuable experience in User testing in the post-Covid era. Initially, it was quite unusual and challenging to get people involved in User Research remotely, however, I learned that regardless of the scenario you can achieve your user testing goals, as long as you’re adaptable and ready to use unconventional tools at your disposal.