Nedbank Staff Servicing

The bank was looking move all their services used by bankers to service clients from an old platform into a brand new re-imagined platform. In total we redesigned over 230 services across 6 products.

Role: Design Lead

Nedbank website

Dates: 2018-2019

01 project challenge

We were tasked with redesigning over 230 services that bankers use to service their clients. Working with very tight deadlines and 6 product teams, we created a new framework and a set of patterns for ease of use and minimal need for system training. Bankers had to start migrating over to this system and so they had to be able to use it very easily and quickly.

02 the process

HUMAN CENTRED DESIGN MEETS ENTERPRISE

Banking in general is always a great challenge in design. How do we make banking human? How do we make clients trust us with their money? Nedbank has made great strides in bringing design process and thinking into their business.

USER RESEARCH

Every quarter I participated in a product roadshow where we would travel the country to introduce new features on the product and participate in user research and testing sessions with the bankers using our product. We also had a full time researcher on our team who would conduct user testing and research before designing or delivering any feature.

UX WRITING

UX writing is so important in UX Design and I feel so lucky to be working in such a multi skilled design team. We had a dedicated UX Writer in our team.

DESIGN IN BUSINESS

Each project needs to prove their return on investment, CX and UX research is at the fore proving business value before budget is allocated. Do users even need this? Is this valuable to the bank? What makes this special? These are the difficult questions we look to answer before a line of code or a screen is even developed.

WORKING WITHIN A MULTINATIONAL TEAM

If there is one thing I have learnt through my career is that there is no them (devs) vs us (designers) culture that has ever built a successful product.
Bring the teams together, make friends, ask for each other's help.
Our entire dev team is overseas, communication is hard, but I have made it part of our culture.
Designers and devs need to have frequent and open channels of communication. Let's learn and work together. We can all compromise on things, but let's build the best that we can!
Building trust with stakeholders is integral! You do that by speaking your mind, using your experience, believing in what you are doing, listening and collaborating.

03 lessons I learnt as a manager

RUNNING A TEAM

Some people are more junior than others, it's ok - hire people with gumption!
All team members are different and each one has qualities that you can harness.
Structure and accountability are key. We all need to feel secure and proud in what we do.
Trust is not to be earned, hand it over.
Laugh a lot .The software business is not easy, have fun when you can.
Know your team, know what they are working on, keep up to date with reviews. That way you can always have their back.
Leading the design strategy is key, be on top of what the team are doing.

04 the team

Design Lead
4 UX Designers
4 UI Designers
1 User Researcher
1 UX Writer
1 Delivery Lead
4 Product Owners
15 Business Analysts
4 Tech Leads
1 Enterprise Architects
2 Scrum masters
1 Project Manager
40 Developers
10 Testers