The banking industry’s recent drive toward end user orientation in SDP design represents an important shift away from its initial focus on bank business and technology requirements over efforts to provide the client with investment interfaces that are easy-to-use. These evolutionary changes in SDP design were driven by advances in other corners of the e-commerce world that served to make technology more pervasive in the everyday lives of consumers, increasing the general awareness of capital markets investors as to how well-designed systems should look and feel.
In 2014, banks must live up to buyside expectations. Savvy consumers of both retail and investment banking services believe that a key component of good customer service includes positive experience on e-commerce platform. However, for a bank, providing a well-developed, client-centric SDP experience can be costly, particularly when the project to develop the platform is undertaken in a haphazard way. As the first SDPs began to adopt the practices and corresponding principles of general excellence in UX design in 2011, a new competitive SDP development landscape began to emerge.
This report presents analysis of the crucial components needed for sophisticated user-centric SDP design. Those components are: strategy, concept, structure, information, interaction and sensory application. When correctly adhered to and utilised, these principle components of user design can create desirable tools that improve user performance within a system.
In the future, excellence in UX design will grow in the banking platform technology space. In order for a bank to stay within the competitive curve, it should adopt these practices now; for single-bank trading platforms to get ahead of the curve, a wholesale organisational culture change is often required for the integration of new business ideas.
This report is published in partnership with Tobias & Tobias, which is a London-based UX consultancy. All of the recommendations in this report are based on the experience of both GreySpark Partners and Tobias & Tobias in working with the clients of Tier I and Tier II banks to build SDPs that are simultaneously e-commerce tools, technology solutions for complex business problems and the user interface for a trading system.
Further commentary on UX in Financial services is available on Tobias & Tobias’ blog
About Tobias & Tobias
Tobias & Tobias is an internationally renowned team of user experience designers and innovators. Using methods rooted in behavioural and cognitive research, Tobias & Tobias’ experts design human-centred systems that improve business performance, and services that people love to use. For more than a decade, Tobias & Tobias has been creating landmark products in the financial services sector, working with forward-thinking clients to develop an enriched understanding of customers’ needs and motives, and to uncover new digital opportunities.
For further information, please visit www.tobiasandtobias.com
