Ed Manson Senior UX Designer
Shaype provides customers with a suite of powerful and flexible financial services which allows their customers to better manage their own financial product experiences.
During my time at Whitespace I was embedded within the Shaype team to help design a new product experience which would allow Shaype customers a way to onboard, set up and use their banking as a service platform online.
The goal of the project was to create a POC that would demonstrate the feasibility of the Shaype technology and ensure that it could work as a functioning tool for users. The POC would then be validated and used as a testing platform to determine the best direction for the client to take for the next iteration of the project.
The Whitespace team was integrated into the client’s team, working alongside their product, marketing and development team members to help create the POC.
This allowed us to have a deeper understanding of the client’s needs and goals, and to ensure that the POC was aligned with their overall strategy. This collaboration was essential to the success of the project as it allowed us to create a POC that met the client’s needs and one that would be well-suited to their target audience.
The project began with a discovery and exploration phase, where I worked closely with key Shaype stakeholders to understand their requirements and the needs of potential users.
In this phase, I worked alongside my teammates in research and design to understand client requirements, the potential users needs and begin to understand the market landscape. This enabled us to gather a comprehensive understanding of the project’s scope, user needs and market trends.
To facilitate this collaboration, we used the popular tool Miro. This enabled us to easily gather and organise feedback and ideas from all stakeholders, as well as to visualise the project’s progress.
During the discovery and exploration phase we prioritised the core feature set for the initial release that would allow developers to set up the client’s banking as a service platform.
Features for the POC included:
These features were designed to streamline the product experience and make it as easy as possible for Shaype clients to set up, access and use their platform.
With user requirements and types defined, I helped design the POC product map, which provided a clear structure and flow for the application. I then created a set of wireframes for both desktop and mobile, which were used to test and validate the design decisions made during the discovery phase.
Testing was carried out over video calls with a cohort of users who had experience with similar platforms and who helped provide valuable insights on what was working and what was not.
Refining the user journeys and wireframes based on user feedback I was then responsible for creating the user interface for the POC.
It was important that design elements and layouts were in line with the client’s existing brand guidelines. As well as this the UI had to meet accessibility standards and be flexible to work across both desktop and mobile, which would allow the application to be easily used on different devices and platforms.
I also highlighted and annotated key user flows to ensure that the developer handover was efficient, this helped the developers to understand the design intent and ensure that the initial POC would meet the identified user needs and client requirements.
The project received extremely positive feedback from the client, they noted that our team brought in-depth knowledge of specialisms within UX that they wouldn’t have been able to find easily elsewhere.
They also praised the accurate and detailed work that was produced, which helped match their vision for the project.
The POC is still actively being developed and improved, and the next steps will be to use this version as a testing platform to validate design and business decisions. The results from this will help the client determine the best direction to take for the next iteration of the product.