Making everyday banking changes self-service
Updating an address or contact detail should take minutes, not a call or branch visit.
Role: Lead product designer
Scope: Research, flows, interaction design and delivery
Team: Product, Design, Engineering and Data
Timeframe: One-quarter programme
Industry: Banking
Introduction & discovery
Updating personal details should be simple. Customers faced a fragmented journey across app, web and branch.
The design challenge
The problem
Updating personal details should be simple. It wasn’t.
Customers faced a fragmented experience across app, web and branch. What should have been a quick self-service task became a high-friction journey, driving frustration and operational cost.
50k calls / month
Reported call volume for personal-detail tasks highlighted the operational cost of the existing experience.
Frequent branch visits
Customers often had to visit a branch to change their address, even for a routine update.
Channel confusion
Customers weren’t sure how to update an international address or whether it required a branch visit.
My role
I led the end-to-end experience from discovery through high-fidelity UI and testing, while mentoring a junior designer and resolving delivery constraints. I partnered with Product, Design, Engineering and Data to shape and deliver the experience.
Validating the problem
Interviews and call data confirmed the same friction: personal-detail updates crossed app, web and branch, turning simple tasks into a high-effort journey.
Qualitative
Stakeholder interviews
Conversations with Crew Leads and General Managers uncovered business pain points and pressure to reduce call volume. Current-state analysis identified friction across app and web.
Quantitative
Research & data analysis
Call-centre data revealed recurring failure points and showed where customers struggled most across the journey.
Synthesis
Insight alignment
We aligned stakeholders around a shared problem and shifted the focus from a UI refresh to solving core customer needs.
Validation aligned business and delivery teams around the underlying customer and operational problems, giving us confidence to move forward.
Defining the opportunity
We compared existing banking journeys and mapped user needs into design principles: a clear entry point, guidance only when needed, and predictable confirmation.
Research / 01
Competitor analysis
We compared six banks across routine address and sensitive legal-name updates, mapping self-service and assisted routes. We looked for guided steps, progressive disclosure and clear confirmation patterns that make complex changes easier to complete than long, form-heavy flows.
Legal nameROUTINE
Address
MQG
INGResearch / 02
Persona
We adapted existing customer archetypes to the specific constraints of managing profile and contact details.
Dependent / Constrained User
Customers who rely entirely on digital channels due to limitations—such as being overseas or having no branch access—and need guidance to complete tasks.
KEY BEHAVIOURS
- A direct route for routine changes.
- Guidance for PayID and sensitive updates.
PAIN POINTS
- Name, gender and title changes were unclear.
- “Assign address to accounts” was easy to misread.
GOALS
- Handle everyday updates online.
- Know which accounts an address affects.
Exploring design directions
Through co-design sessions with the Tech Lead, Product Manager, BA and Business Analyst, we compared approaches for the contact-details journey against user needs, business goals and technical constraints.
Two directions emerged
Competitor analysis and persona work helped us identify where profile updates felt unclear or fragmented. We explored two directions to address those needs.
OPTION 1
Guided multi-page experience
A structured, step-by-step flow that breaks profile updates into manageable sections.
OPTION 2
Flexible single-page experience
A consolidated experience allowing users to edit everything in one place.
The winning approach
Option 1 was the stronger direction because its guided steps made profile updates easier to follow, showing people what they needed at each point. Option 2 offered quick access to everything on one screen, but its denser layout risked overwhelming people and making errors more likely.
What testing revealed
Testing real update tasks
We tested the updated profile and contact-details experience to see how people handled common changes and where they needed more guidance.
Eight 60-minute sessions covered key address and contact updates, followed by questions about confusing labels and sensitive changes.
Exploratory + task-based
We watched tasks and asked what people expected.
Mobile number + address
Finding, updating and managing personal details.
Insights from usability testing
Participants generally understood where to start. The harder moments were verification, PayID and what would happen when assigning an address to accounts.
What worked
- Profile structure matched expectations.
- Display names were easy to recognise.
- Address updates felt intuitive.
- Account assignment fit real use cases.
What needed improvement
- Clarify legal name, gender and title changes.
- Add guidance for PayID updates.
- Explain “assign address to accounts”.
- Set expectations for sensitive verification.
The final solution
Objective: Make everyday profile updates easier to complete through self-service.
Evidence: Testing showed that people needed clearer guidance around sensitive changes, verification and account assignment.
Response: Focused steps, simpler interactions and clear explanations of what can be changed online.
FINAL DESIGN / 01
Address update journey
The journey was divided into focused steps so customers could complete one task at a time with less cognitive load.
FINAL DESIGN / 02
Simpler interactions
Using the home address for postal details reduced repeated input without hiding the consequences.
FINAL DESIGN / 03
Guidance
Clear guidance on legal names, preferred names and international addresses helped customers understand what could be updated online and when assisted support was required.
Outcomes & lessons
We measured the redesign against goals for ease of use, completion time, app fallout and calls about personal-detail updates.
The results recorded in the case study show reduced effort, faster completion and less dependence on assisted channels.
Measuring success
| Goal / metric | Baseline | Target | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Improve ease of useCustomers rating the journey “Worse Than Expected” | 68% | 12% | 9% |
| Improve time to completeMedian completion time for a profile update | 4m 20s | 3m 30s | 1m 05s75% reduction |
| Reduce app falloutSwitch from app to assisted channels (CSD) | 18% | 14% | 10%44% reduction |
| Reduce callsCall volume for updating personal information | 50k monthly | 35k monthly | 23k monthly54% reduction |
Reduced effort
Fewer steps and less cognitive load in profile updates.
Improved speed
Progressive disclosure shortened profile-update tasks.
Lower dependency
Customers relied less on calls and branches for basic updates.
Scalable core
A shared framework ready to support future feature growth.
Lessons learnt
Designing for clarity within complexity
Simplifying profile management required balancing regulatory, operational and technical constraints while still creating a seamless customer experience.
Trust is critical for sensitive data
Customers needed reassurance when updating personal information. Clear confirmation, validation and feedback patterns were essential to building confidence.
Small UX changes can create large impact
Better guidance and smarter defaults significantly reduced friction and improved customer understanding.
Leading through alignment
Strong collaboration across Design, Product, Engineering and Business teams was critical to balancing customer needs, scalability and delivery constraints.