Designing a Future Ready Consumer Fintech App experience for Barclays

Platform:

iOS & Android

Duration:

8 weeks

Client:

Barclays UK

My Role:

Lead Product Designer

Introduction

By 2028, customer needs and supporting technology will be far more complex. Barclays aims to invest in and scale new capabilities to deliver exceptional future customer experiences.

In this project, we crafted a mobile app-led experience to help Barclays become a personal and proactive partner in customers' lives. It uses data to provide personalized guidance for overall wellbeing, not just banking, ensuring a seamless and deeply personal journey. The project shaped Barclays' strategy and highlighted future possibilities for the next 5 years.
Let's begin our Journey into Barclays: App of the Future!

My Role

I'm the lead product designer on this project. I collaborated with fellow Principal designer, Junior designer and a Product manager throughout the project. We were part of larger group wide team of Group Directors and the CTO office.

The Challenge

Barclays aims to innovate beyond just adding new features by focusing on adaptive UX/UI, conversational design, and other cutting-edge technologies. The goal is to lead in trust-building and consumer care.

The challenge is not only to understand what to build in the next five years but also to create a strategic vision that positions Barclays as a future leader.

Evolving Expectations

To achieve this, we must anticipate and understand the evolving expectations of our customers and the market over the next five years.

MARKET INSIGHTS

Industry
Banking apps expand to non-financial services &
non-bank experiences shape banking app expectations.

Technology
5G and increased processing power boosts performance
and services and IoT will extend feature capability

Consumer
Apps analyse and use context and behaviour with tech and data.

Regulatory
Consumer duty of care amplifying banks ‘focus on customer wellbeing
Regulators continuously adapting to tech advances

CUSTOMER INSIGHTS

DEFINING THE CHALLENGE

Goals

BUSINESS GOALS

Create Trusting Relationships
Promote data sharing and engagement by fostering a secure and transparent environment where customers feel confident in sharing their data.

Approachable and Transparent Brand
Be seen as approachable, guiding, supportive, and transparent. Build a brand image that encourages easy interaction and clear communication.

USER GOALS

Personalized Experience for Retention
Retain older and current customers by offering personalized experiences, using data insights to tailor services and interactions.

Trusted Digital Interface
Develop a trusted digital interface for accessing a range of life services, ensuring reliability and security.

Accessible through Conversational Design
Increase accessibility through conversational design with intuitive, voice-enabled, and AI-driven interfaces.

Key Findings

Market Insights X Customer Insights X Business Goals helps us uncover key findings that guide the development & form the creative direction.

KEY FINDING #1

Make my life easier

In one place, help me to...
Make complexity feel simple
Make progress more attainable
Save time
Make smarter decisions
Prioritise
Streamline accounts
Manage family account

CURRENT APP

Barclays excels in transactional experiences and ranks highly among high-street banks but lags behind challenger banks in usability, features, and performance.

IMPACT

Decrease in digitally active CC&P consumers
Increase in calls to CS

KEY FINDING #2

Understand me dynamically

Meet my personalised needs through...
Tailored real time content
Adapting and evolving with me
Removing the effort with looking for value
Intuitive interactions.

CURRENT APP

Barclays' mobile app lacks real-time personalization, presenting a significant opportunity to create a truly tailored user experience.

IMPACT

Market share decrease

KEY FINDING #3

Be my trusted source of guidance

Support me by...

Looking at my holistic financial health and behaviours
Becoming my trusted source of guidance
Acting as a real partner who knows and cares for me
Helping with consent and care
Being proactive

CURRENT APP

Barclays offers wellness tools and content but lacks personalized insights beyond ads and spending stats. Their aim to expand subscriptions, products, and rewards results in a fragmented, commercial experience with limited value across life stages.

IMPACT

NPS  decrease.

KEY FINDING #4

Help my whole life, not just banking

I need you to..
Be genuine
Look at my needs outside of banking
increase my value
provide content that relate to my life outside of banking

CURRENT APP

Barclays is looking to expand subscriptions, products & rewards, but it is a frankenstein'd and highly commercial experience with questionable value-add across life stages.

IMPACT

User Traffic decrease.

KEY FINDING #5

Supports me seamlessly

Provide emotionally intelligent interactions to Proactively...
Remove friction
Maintain security
Mend broken journeys
Offer me the right support intervention
Understand and respond with the appropriate channel

CURRENT APP

Barclays has yet to define a clear strategy for integrating human and digital servicing through seamless data-informed experience

IMPACT

Revenue & Market share decrease

Our Users

With the consumer insights, we were able to put together a set of proto-personas, that covered a range of user types to ensure we were designing for all sorts of behaviours & accessibility needs

Meet Emilie and her family.

Emilie has been a Barclays customer for 25 years and became a Premier customer 5 years ago. She lives in Bath with her partner and their teenage son, and is Power of Attorney for her ageing mother who lives nearby. Her mum has early onset dementia and this causes Emelie both worry and increased pressure to keep her safe and secure. Her son has big dreams and she wants to prepare him for the future, like her Mum did for her.

Jacob, Emilie’s son, switched from a children’s account in the last 4 months and is new to using the Barclays app. His mum wants him to learn about money, but banking in general is confusing and boring to him. That said, he wants to be independent and not treated like a kid. Jacob loves playing rugby and playstation with his mates, and he wants to become a Chef. He doesn’t know anyone who’s taken that career path, so he’s unsure where to start.

Yvonne, Emilie’s mum, has been with Barclays for 40 years and is retired after a long career in the NHS. Yvonne wants is to see her family happy and struggle less than she had to when her daughter was growing up. She loves spoiling her grandson, Jacob, and tries to keep up with his interests. She loves her independence and feeling cool and fun but conscious that her own health is starting to deteriorate. She finds keeping track of her finances more and more confusing and has lost confidence to keep everything in order. She is increasingly relying on her daughter, Emilie, but hates being a burden.

These were the 3 key user types we kept referring back to to ensure what we what we were designing addressed the correct needs

Thinking about all 3 personas

How might we...

To help us ideate, we turned the findings and user insights into HMWs...

Our Users

With the consumer insights, we were able to put together a set of proto-personas, that covered a range of user types to ensure we were designing for all sorts of behaviours & accessibility needs

These were the 3 key user types we kept referring back to to ensure what we what we were designing addressed the correct needs

Thinking about all 3 personas

How might we...

To help us ideate, we turned the findings and user insights into HMWs...

From this we jammed as a team to create…

The Barclays App of the Future

We have identified five key findings that now serve as our foundation for developing solutions. We refer to these as 'solution themes,' offering a glimpse into the future.

Each key finding has been paired with a corresponding solution theme, and together, these solution themes form the complete solution.

5 KEY FINDINGS = 5 SOLUTION THEMES = THE COMPLETE SOLUTION

From this we jammed as a team to create…

The Barclays App of the Future

We have identified five key findings that now serve as our foundation for developing solutions. We refer to these as 'solution themes,' offering a glimpse into the future.

Each key finding has been paired with a corresponding solution theme, and together, these solution themes form the complete solution.

5 KEY FINDINGS = 5 SOLUTION THEMES = THE COMPLETE SOLUTION

SOLUTION THEME #1 | Transact and Go: Executing the New Basics Brilliantly

Barclays actively makes my life easier

In the future, every Barclays customer will have highly intelligent rules and insights about their money management that makes the difficult things feel simple. Barclays actively makes their lives easier by performing the transact & go basics brilliantly.

QUICK GLIMPSE

Transact-to-go: Executing the New Basics Brilliantly

Customers want us to make their lives easier through simplifying complex tasks, saving time & helping them with money management.

WHAT

Automated transactions, Intelligent rules, Contextually smart guidance, conversational designs.

WHY

Removes repetitive actions, allows smarter decisions, ensures priorities are addressed, and brings multiple accounts and family management into one place.

SOLUTION THEME #1 | Transact and Go: Executing the New Basics Brilliantly

Barclays actively makes my life easier

QUICK GLIMPSE

Transact-to-go: Executing the New Basics Brilliantly

Customers want us to make their lives easier through simplifying complex tasks, saving time & helping them with money management.

WHAT

Automated transactions, Intelligent rules, Contextually smart guidance, conversational designs.

WHY

Removes repetitive actions, allows smarter decisions, ensures priorities are addressed, and brings multiple accounts and family management into one place.

Meet Barnaby. Barclays new app and personal AI assistant, integrated across Emilie's family’s accounts and devices. Barnaby partners with Emilie and her family on their financial journey to ease their burdens, improve wellbeing, and reach their goals. Barnaby does the work in the background to take care of them, provide insights to make decisions, and is there to chat when needed.

SOLUTION THEME #2 | Unique to Me: Modular Apps Powered by Adaptive UX/UI

Barclays understands me dynamically

In the future every Barclays customer will have their own tailored landing page on the app. Here we see 3 versions for Emilie’s family, were Barnaby uses real-time and holistic data to create a highly tailored individual experience, all while maintaining control for customers to edit their own views.

QUICK GLIMPSE

Unique-to-Me: Modular App Powered by Adaptive UX/UI

This is about the ‘mE’conomy. Customers want us to understand them as an individual, they want us to provide them with the right value with the right message at the right time.

WHAT

Highly tailored real-time content, views that adapt to and evolve with individual needs, and intuitive interactions from laser-focused understanding of them individually

WHY

Ensures their needs are prioritised, removes effort to hunt for value, and ensures relevant value reaches the right person with the right message at the right time.

SOLUTION THEME #2 | Unique to Me: Modular Apps Powered by Adaptive UX/UI

Barclays understands me dynamically

QUICK GLIMPSE

Unique-to-Me: Modular App Powered by Adaptive UX/UI

This is about the ‘mE’conomy. Customers want us to understand them as an individual, they want us to provide them with the right value with the right message at the right time.

WHAT

Highly tailored real-time content, views that adapt to and evolve with individual needs, and intuitive interactions from laser-focused understanding of them individually

WHY

Ensures their needs are prioritised, removes effort to hunt for value, and ensures relevant value reaches the right person with the right message at the right time.

This dynamic customised experience includes how they manage their money. Every customer gets dynamic suggestions – like budgeting and investing options that uniquely suite their portfolio, goals, and spending – and more custom views of their financial health based on their priorities or needs.

SOLUTION THEME #3 | Consent & Care: Insight Driven Customer Wellbeing

Barclays is my trusted source of guidance

In the future, every Barclays customer will have smart tools and insights across each step of their journey, including integrated personal or family accounts, by using data-driven insights and ‘if this then that’ logic to help with decisions towards financial health and quality of care.

QUICK GLIMPSE

Insight Led Financial Wellbeing & Care

Customers want a genuine service they can trust, to help them with their complex needs through life events.

WHAT

Intelligent financial tools, integrated accounts, shared family or business permissions, proactive prompts, and dynamic insights based on holistic data and behavioural analysis.

WHY

Supports and protects holistic financial health, becomes trusted source of guidance (for individual and family), and helps Barclays feel like a real partner who knows and cares for them, and wants to help and serve, not sell and push products.

SOLUTION THEME #3 | Consent & Care: Insight Driven Customer Wellbeing

Barclays is my trusted source of guidance

QUICK GLIMPSE

Insight Led Financial Wellbeing & Care

Customers want a genuine service they can trust, to help them with their complex needs through life events.

WHAT

Intelligent financial tools, integrated accounts, shared family or business permissions, proactive prompts, and dynamic insights based on holistic data and behavioural analysis.

WHY

SOLUTION THEME #4 | Partnerships: Value Beyond Banking

Barclays helps my whole life, not just banking

In the future, every Barclays customer will have access to a collection of thier own individual rewards, benefits, and offers that meet their needs across their lifestyle, not just banking, but with partner journeys, embedded in their Barclays experience.

QUICK GLIMPSE

Partnerships

Customers want support with their holistic financial health. They want to be guided by a real partner who knows and cares for them and wants to help as opposed to push products.

WHAT

Access to individually relevant and aggregated rewards, benefits, and offers that serve their holistic needs, not just banking, with partner journeys and value embedded in their Barclays experience,

WHY

Creates seamless end-to-end journeys through life events and complex needs, increases individualised value and trust, and saves them time.

SOLUTION THEME #4 | Partnerships: Value Beyond Banking

Barclays helps my whole life, not just banking

QUICK GLIMPSE

Partnerships

Customers want support with their holistic financial health. They want to be guided by a real partner who knows and cares for them and wants to help as opposed to push products.

WHAT

Access to individually relevant and aggregated rewards, benefits, and offers that serve their holistic needs, not just banking, with partner journeys and value embedded in their Barclays experience,

WHY

Creates seamless end-to-end journeys through life events and complex needs, increases individualised value and trust, and saves them time.

SOLUTION THEME #5 | Seamless Interactions:  Digital to Human Services

Barclays supports me seamlessly

In the future, every Barclays customer will be able to seamlessly hand off from digital to human and visa versa, across channels and devices, with the right support to the right person at the right time in a way suitable for them. Whether digital or human, customers have smart and emotionally intelligent conversational interactions.

SOLUTION THEME #5

Seamless Interactions:  Digital to Human Services

Customers want the right support intervention for their personal needs at the right time to help maintain security and mend broken journeys.

WHAT

Seamless digital-to-human handoffs and shared data,
smart home compatibility, voice over IP, contextually smart conversational AI called Barnaby across devices and channels.

WHY

Increases trust and security, saves time and redundant service, proactively mends broken journeys, and offers dynamic digital or human support to the right person at the right time in a personalised way.

SOLUTION THEME #5 | Seamless Interactions:  Digital to Human Services

Barclays supports me seamlessly

SOLUTION THEME #5

Seamless Interactions:  Digital to Human Services

Customers want the right support intervention for their personal needs at the right time to help maintain security and mend broken journeys.

WHAT

Seamless digital-to-human handoffs and shared data,
smart home compatibility, voice over IP, contextually smart conversational AI called Barnaby across devices and channels.

WHY

In SUMMARY

In this future, Barclays has become a truly personal and active partner in everyones life: making their lives easier by understanding them deeply, using data to create custom guidance for their whole wellbeing, not just banking, and ensuring their journey feels seamless and personal. To achieve this, Barclays will want to invest and scale new capabilities to deliver exceptional customer experience for 2028, and beyond.

Thank you for reading through! Hope you enjoyed learning about my design and thought process. :)

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