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Digital Banking Revolution

Category
UX Architecture
Roles
Product Owner, UX Architect, UI Designer
Client
Financial sector, Italian banks

Even a simple bank operation meant jumping across several tools. I turned it into one place

Digital Banking Revolution
Browser windows of the banking operator workspace (dashboard, client record, payments, cards) overlapping at different scales on a plain cream background. Concept visual, real designs under NDA.

All images in this case are generated. The real projects were under NDA, so these screens recreate the work without showing any client material.

Overview

For over four years I worked on an enterprise fintech platform for Italian banks. I started as Product Owner and moved into UX design, so I have seen this product from the roadmap and from the screen. The job: replace a scattered set of outdated, disconnected banking tools with one platform built on research, and keep strategy, design and delivery pulling in the same direction.

The problem

Picture a bank operator on a normal day. To handle one client they move across several old, monolithic applications that barely talk to each other, retyping the same data, tracking things by hand, hoping nothing slips. Nobody designed that workflow. It piled up over the years. The cost: repetitive work, slower days and a constant risk of mistakes.

One operation, start to finish

  1. Step 1

    Find the client

    One search field for names, IBANs and tax codes.

  2. Step 2

    Open the record

    Accounts, open operations and history in one view.

  3. Step 3

    Create the operation

    Four steps, with the client data already filled in.

  4. Step 4

    Follow it through

    Status and deadline for every request, from submission to execution.

Process

Inception

Context

An enterprise platform for bank operators, living among outdated, disconnected monolithic applications. The same tasks kept coming back, redundant and slow.

Goal

One user centred platform for the whole internal ecosystem of banking products: more efficiency, less manual work, better usability

Six separate banking tools, each linked by lines to one operator, next to a single Workspace panel listing the same six modules.
Six tools become one

Discover

Research

  • Stakeholder interviews
  • Contextual inquiries with bank operators
  • Desk research and heuristic reviews of existing systems

Findings

  • The same operations were repeated across multiple tools
  • Missing integration caused delays, confusion and errors
  • Cluttered, inconsistent interfaces needed constant support

Journey

Our main persona is a bank operator handling many transactions and client accounts every day. Their journey was full of system switching, data re entry and manual tracking.

Journey of a bank transfer across six steps, from receiving the request to tracking by hand, with a line showing the operator going from calm to frustrated.
One transfer, six steps

Design

Approach

  • Information architecture mapped to integrated workflows
  • Low fidelity wireframes to align stakeholders early
  • Modular components for repetitive actions
  • Clarity, accessibility and scalability in the UI structure
Site map from Workspace to Dashboard, Clients, Operations and Payments with their sub pages, next to a low fidelity wireframe of the client record.
Structure before screens

Test

Methods

  • Usability testing with internal users on low fidelity prototypes
  • Comparisons of legacy and proposed flows
  • Heuristic evaluations of the redesigned journeys

Insights

  • Users found the new flow more intuitive and much faster
  • Simpler client search and operations tracking reduced errors
  • Early testing let us pivot before costly development
Legacy flow zigzagging across six tools next to the proposed flow running in a single Workspace lane.
Legacy against proposed

Develop

Specs

  • Documentation for each component and flow
  • Shared design system and UI kit for consistency
  • Handoff with annotated Figma prototypes
Design system specimens: primary and secondary buttons, four status chips and a validated IBAN field.
The kit in use

Measure

Metrics

  • Time on task down by about 40% for core operations
  • Higher task success rate in testing
  • Positive feedback from internal bank users and support teams
Two illustrative bars comparing time on task, the unified platform about 40 percent shorter than the legacy tools, with higher task success and positive team feedback below.
About 40% less time

Gallery

Gallery
Two screens of the banking operator workspace stacked on a plain background: the dashboard with a work queue sorted by deadline, and the client record with accounts, open operations and history.
A work queue sorted by deadline, with the day's numbers beside it. The client record keeps accounts, open operations and history in one place.

Outcome

40%

The number I care about: about 40% less time on core operations. Behind it, fewer copy and paste errors, less frustration, and teams that finally trusted the tools in front of them.

Learnings

Two things pulled at me all the time: the strategic vision of the product and the hands on design work. Legacy systems taught me to adapt and get creative, and working close to developers and stakeholders kept what we wanted both feasible and useful. Real designs are under NDA, so the visuals on this page are concept illustrations.

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