M&T Bank Case Study

At G2O, my UX team and I partnered with M&T Bank to improve the account opening process across online and branch experiences.

After 9 months of research, concepting, design, content strategy and testing, we rolled out the MVP / first release version of the new platform — built with an emphasis on scalability, accessibility and customization.

The results of the MVP / first release were overwhelmingly positive. Both the online and branch versions were reduced to an average of 5 minutes — making the application experience quick and easy.

My Role & Skills

While my main focus & specialty is UI/ Visual Design, I also like to take any opportunity to put on different hats and try other roles & responsibilities making me more of a “Multidisciplinary Designer” on the team. While I have a deep understanding of my role as a UI/ Visual Designer, I also have the ability to collaborate & support meaningfully with my cross-functional and cross-disciplinary partners, with a shared language and unifying goal.

In UI/ Visual Design alone I think about the visuals, design system & documentation as different methods to create a final artifact for the user. But I also keep in mind that UI/ Visual Design is just a small piece of the puzzle and I also consider: user research, interactions, content strategy, marketing, sales, data science, legal & compliance, security, QA, and dev ops. I recognize the depth of, and my ability to perform within, each of these areas.

As a modern designer I strive to be multidisciplinary, and I think design teams should seek to build a team of overlapping multidisciplinary designers. The team structure then becomes about balancing skill coverage and skill depth, guided by upstream business needs.As a member of any team I also: write copy, understand the sales pipeline, interview users, read the data, and think performance-first. I try to be a person who does all of these things day to day in any meaningful capacity, but sometimes it's not realistic to do all of these tasks every day. Sometimes I need to just focus on the UI/ Visual Design ask from the Product Owner. In my experience I've been able to run the furthest & fastest when collaborating with people in complementary roles where we each take the time and effort to speak one another's language and build a shared understanding of what we're really working towards.

LEAD ROLES

UI/ Visual Design (user-friendly styling of components, grid & layout)
High Fidelity Prototypes (execution of full flows & different user scenarios, interactions, handoff & collaboration with dev engineers)
Design System
Documentation
Design tools used: Sketch, InVision App

SUPPORT ROLES

UX Design
(thought process & flow,
strategy, wireframes)
UX Research
UX Writing

Original Experience Challenges

Online Experience

The online customer experience had confusing input fields, expectations that weren’t communicated clearly on the page, and took an average of 20 minutes to complete.

Here is a screen-shot of the old experience for reference.

Branch Experience

Before we got started, the branch experience for bankers involved multiple legacy systems that were prone to timeouts and crashes, and it took 45 minutes on average for a banker to complete an account opening for a customer.

Here are screen-shots of those multiple legacy systems & old experience for reference.

Iterations RD 1

Our nine-person team at G2O identified the similarities between online and branch experiences to set up a master flow that we could begin testing with actual users — M&T Bank customers and branch employees.

I practiced my UX skills by building wireframes in Freehand to work quickly through representing each screen of the master flow.

After the wireframe stage, my team developed a design direction for our first round of usability testing, and I iterated designs for each screen as we found out more from both customers and bankers.

In-Branch Observations & Interviews

Goal: to understand banker behavior, as well as validate overall functionality of the Dash product, uncover usability issues, and identify any areas for future improvement

My Role: observed interactions between bankers & customers, interviewed bankers, collected & synthesized the data

What we discovered: bankers introduced customers to the account opening with a shared experience using their desktop machines. The Dash product put the customer at ease and allowed the banker to streamline their process to build better customer relationships. Customers appreciated the ease and speed of the process

Competitive Audits

Goal: to support us in tracking where M&T’s competitors are, what makes them successful, and help us discover the areas where the bank can improve for both the online and branch experiences of account opening

My Role: I went through the mobile online experience of M&T’s competitors to capture screen shots of their account opening & online enrollment processes

What we discovered:
- Online: M&T’s competitor experiences were quick and used language that was friendly & easy to understand
- Branches: M&T’s competitors were focus more on technology such as “next generation” ATMs that replaced traditional teller lines, as well as multiple mounted tablets that supported bankers in specialty advising services, rather than processing payments and deposits. Branch spaces seemed updated with features like cafés, booths and other seating areas for people to come in and work on their own devices — they felt more like a public space

Co-Designing with the Product Owners

Goal: identify a solution that provides users with better experiences, as well as improve and innovate services for the organization

My Role: created physical artifacts that supported the Co-Design sessions. I also observed & took notes, then later synthesized the data into a report

What we discovered:
The Product Owners learned quickly that they were over-engineering solutions to problems that didn't really exist
These Co-Designing sessions supported in getting Product Owner buy-in quickly for the Dash product we were designing

Co-Designing with Bankers

Goal: improve the banker experience for account openings in the branches, and to understand the tools bankers need vs. nice-to-have's

My Role: created physical artifacts that supported the Co-Design sessions. I also observed & took notes, then later synthesized the data into a report

What we discovered:
The banker's most desired tools, which included:
- Integrating cross-sell options for customers
- The ability for bankers to open multiple account types in one session
- Editing of customer information for existing users

Not to slow the bankers down with modals within the product—it can create cognitive overload and they lose their natural rhythm of a conversation with the customer

These Co-Designing sessions supported in getting branch employee buy-in quickly for the Dash product we were designing

Cosmic Wild Woman
✨🌿

M&T Bank Case Study

Contents

The G2O Team

My Role & Skills

Original Experience Challenges

Iterations RD 1

Research & Data

We accomplished all of thisthrough Research Methods like:

Next Project:

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M&T Bank Case Study

Contents

The G2O Team

My Role & Skills

Original Experience Challenges

Iterations RD 1

Research & Data

We accomplished all of this through Research Methods like:

Next Project:

Or use the top navigation dropdown: Commercial Art Portfolio

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We accomplished all of thisthrough Research Methods like: