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Context
Merchant Services is a service offered by CBC via outside companies. In simple terms, Merchant Services involves all the hardware and software used in accepting credit card payments from customers. The mainstream companies offer wonderful and quite versatile options for big and small businesses. This includes accepting cards via mobile phone, online payment portals, and of course, counter-top consoles.
Tools
My Role
UX Research (so much research!)
Running Design Sprint
Prototyping
User Interviews
Hi-Fi Designs
The Problem
CBC Bank's current Merchant Services presence online is lacking a logical information architecture therefore making it seem disjointed, while failing to display all services actually offered by the bank.
Adobe XD | Figjam | UserLytics
Research
When introduced to this design project, I needed a proper definition of what merchant services was.
The task came with some research goals that I wrote.
Research goals:
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Learn what Merchant Services include and what CBC Bank offers.
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Research competitors on their merchant services.
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Create Competitor Profile and SWOT Analysis.
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Create a Gap Analysis.
CBC Bank Offers:
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Three POS (Point of Sale) options offered:
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Dial-Up Analog Landline connection.
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IPN Transactions via internet
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Wireless Purchasing
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Telephone processing, Web-Based Processing, and Software based processing
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CBC Merchant Services site currently encourages users to call and email for more info.
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They also accept checks through eDeposit.
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Integration with Quicken and Quickbooks is available.
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It proves difficult to navigate and view all services offered.
SWOT Analysis
Part of the Gap Analysis involves a SWOT chart to be created.
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One way to analyze the competition is to create a SWOT Analysis it involves:
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Strengths of the competitor
Weaknesses of the competitor
Opportunities for us to surpass them
Threats the competition faces
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In this project, we compete against PayPal, Square, Toast, and Clover. These four major players in the merchant services market are globally successful companies and any potential customers of ours will have heard of these companies before considering CBC Bank's merchant services.
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During my research I analyzed six companies using a SWOT chart, including CBC's own products. This type of comparison highlights the differences and truly gets to the meat of the content. I learned through this process that I found points of entry into the competition. Exploiting the weaknesses of the competition is the way to gain market value and to make a name for yourself as a business.
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Toast seemed to have the overall best business model, customer service, and opportunity for all sizes of businesses.
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After I started this project, CBC Bank has now began using products made by Toast.
Self Analysis
To gain a new perspective on ourselves CBC Bank needed a thorough to self analysis. This Heuristic Evaluation can provide a look inward to determine our own weaknesses and most importantly a direction for the new design.
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For this evaluation I kept in the mindset of being an outsider to this website with no prior bias. I learned early on in this career that being honest and communicating the issue will go far into solving those issues quicker and more effectively.
This document recommends an entire redesign of the Merchant Service's presence on our website.
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Design Sprint
Context and goals:
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Visual redesign of merchant services web presence
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Be more transparent with the page, show more information about our services to better appeal to customers
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Goals:
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Bring us up to a competitive level with our peers
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Want to drive more business and increase revenue
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Individual Ideation:
Of the 10 individuals that were involved in the design sprint, each person was expected to draw their interpretation. Twenty minutes were provided for this session.
Presentation and Sticker Vote:
Each participant presented their drawings was then given four stickers to vote for their favorite designs.
This design got the most sticker votes which, in turn, caused the most conversation on how to make it work. Several decisions were determined as a result of this design.
Takeaways from Design Sprint
After our initial design sprint, I learned how much needs prepared. Not only does it include the oversized sticky notes, markers, voting stickers, but also a location and scheduling. Also great ideas can come from anywhere. The most liked design from the sprint came from a Merchant Services customer service officer. The vision she had helped the rest of the designers build towards the final product.
Low Fidelity Prototypes
After our initial design sprint myself and a few other designers drew our initial wireframes. I wanted to explore the different products through my design, showcasing the variety, and highlighting the features. A webpage on merchant services requires showing physical products, comparing products, lists of features, sifting through categories, an assessment of needs, and user reviews.
Medium Fidelity Prototypes
After our initial design sprint myself and a few other designers drew our initial wireframes. I wanted to explore the different products through my design, showcasing the variety, and highlighting the features.
A webpage on merchant services requires:
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physical products
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comparing products
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lists of features
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sifting through categories
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an assessment of needs
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and an incentive to attract businesses.
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These designs were a blast to design. Keeping in mind that I was limited by removing color from these medium fidelity designs, I really had to force my inner design learner emerge. As designers, there's always a part of us that want to jump to high fidelity screens and making it as pretty as possible. This project gave me a a respect and new found trust of the process.
Since this was designed to be a landing page, I needed it to be quite visual and eye catching. Images of people using cash registers and payment devices told users, and specifically business people, they are in the right place to find point of sale devices. The section labelled "What Our Customers Say" started out as a simple quote section with a clickable carousel. This page was built with small business owners in mind and to them personal connections matter. So, why not change this section to something more personal? I was inspired with the idea of putting local business owners with their name, business, and location with the hopes of making a connection. The high fidelity prototypes reflect a change to the "What Our Customers Say" section.
High Fidelity Prototypes
Highly visual and to the point. That's the vibe I'm going for here. I kept the words to a minimum, while still conveying the point of this page. There are several changes from medium to high fidelity. Besides the headings and titles changing from a center alignment, there are changes in the lists and even the loss of one section. As previously mentioned the "What Our Customers Say" needed a change. It's now called "Testimonials", because it called for some more professionality. The newly designed testimonial section allows for interaction to see all three comments.
Key Insights
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Use less full length sentences makes the process more streamlined and to the point.
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Common elements on the page helps familiarize users with design.
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Word of mouth is a powerful way to communicate a quality product especially when users heard of the product first.
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The appeal of having photos of customers using the product puts users at ease.
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Aligning the user needs with business needs is successful through lots of communication, especially early on in the process.
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Adapting to changing expectations became a theme of this project. Major stakeholders in this project kept updating their needs.
Compare and Apply
Our business customers all have a similar need; to spend the least amount of money while still providing the best service to customers. This necessity can be addressed with a customization which CBC Bank offers. This comparison table is simply a starting piece and customization comes when business owners are contacted, and specific needs can be discussed.
An application form with multiple steps lays out the needs by CBC to get a conversation started. Simple toggles were added with image and description allowing customization to be added later.
Explore more projects on my homepage.