The digital era has reshaped consumer expectations, especially in the financial sector, where a seamless and personalized online experience is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Sacombank, a leading financial institution, embarked on an ambitious journey to meet and exceed these demands, aiming for nothing less than a complete digital experience transformation for its online retail banking platform.
This case study details how Cardinal Peak and FPT applied a unique blend of engineering insight and user-centered design expertise, utilizing strategic UX workshops and iterative development, to craft a modern, engaging, and highly functional digital presence that truly resonated with Sacombank’s users.
The Challenge: Revolutionizing Online Retail Banking for Sacombank
Sacombank, a prominent financial institution, recognized the imperative to revolutionize its online retail banking experience. Their objective was ambitious: to launch a new website that not only adhered to modern web standards and leveraged the robust AEM Cloud technology platform but also delivered an outstanding brand image. A paramount goal was to provide a highly personalized experience through sophisticated content and recommendation features, ensuring a contemporary interface that truly resonated with their diverse user base. This required a deep understanding of user needs coupled with a strong engineering backbone, aiming for a complete digital experience transformation.
We partnered with Sacombank to achieve a complete digital experience transformation, delivering a modern online banking platform that prioritizes personalized interactions and sets a new industry standard.
Our Solution: Engineering-Informed User-Centered Design (UCD)
We understand that a truly exceptional digital product is born from the seamless integration of world-class user experience design and robust engineering principles. For Sacombank, we applied our comprehensive User-Centered Design (UCD) framework, meticulously integrating our deep engineering insights with every step, from initial user research to the final design and implementation. A foundational element of our approach was a meticulously planned and expertly facilitated UX Design Workshop. This ensured that the product was not just aesthetically pleasing but also technically feasible, scalable, and built to last, driving the desired digital experience transformation.
Diving Deep with a Strategic Design Workshop
Our UX Design Workshop for Sacombank was strategically structured to fully leverage our expertise in facilitating collaborative problem-solving and accelerate the path from conceptualization to actionable design.
- Pre-Workshop Preparation: We began with meticulous preparation, a critical step to maximize workshop efficiency and outcomes. Prior to the workshop, we conducted extensive user interviews to create detailed user journey maps and brainstorm potential solutions. We then gathered detailed information on Sacombank’s specific goals, target audience, and challenges for the new website. This allowed us to build a custom workshop agenda, selecting optimal activities from the “Double Diamond” methodology and preparing all necessary materials. Crucially, we helped assemble a diverse mix of attendees from across Sacombank’s organization—including product owners, marketing, and IT—ensuring a wide range of perspectives and fostering cross-functional alignment.
- Collaborative Workshop Session: During the workshop, our experienced facilitators guided participants through a well-paced schedule of design thinking activities and ideation. We started with an onboarding session to familiarize everyone with the goals and format, establishing a supportive, open environment. This encouraged active participation and the sharing of insights, allowing us to gain a profound understanding of user needs, Sacombank’s business strategy, and the technical considerations for implementation. The sessions focused on collaboratively prioritizing solutions and defining a clear path forward.
- Post-Workshop Actionability: Following the workshop, we delivered a comprehensive report including all workshop artifacts, key findings, and a detailed summary. The insights and priorities established during the workshop were summarized and presented to stakeholders, ensuring the valuable outcomes translated directly into a clear roadmap for product development.
Iterative Design, Testing, and Refinement
The profound insights gleaned from the UX Design Workshop were instrumental in the next phase of our process. We proceeded to design several main screens of the website, focusing on key user flows and critical interactions. These early designs were used to gather invaluable feedback from stakeholders, allowing us to rapidly refine and finalize the design solutions, ensuring they were not only aesthetically pleasing and functional but also efficient to implement and easy to maintain—a direct benefit of our engineering-driven UX approach. We continuously tested hypotheses and iterated based on stakeholder feedback and technical constraints.
The Outcome: A New Standard for Online Banking
Sacombank formally launched its new website in July 2023. The result is a modern online banking experience characterized by concise, user-friendly content, a contemporary interface, and a thoughtful consideration for the user’s path and overall experience. The new website delivers on Sacombank’s vision for an outstanding brand image and provides personalized interactions, setting a new standard for their digital presence. The final guidelines also included UX writing to ensure consistent, user-friendly language across the platform. This successful digital experience transformation underscores the power of integrating robust UX design services with deep engineering expertise.
Elevate Your Product’s User Experience with Engineering-Driven Digital Experience Transformation
This case study highlights how Cardinal Peak’s integrated approach, combining world-class UX design and research services with deep product engineering expertise, delivers superior results. Whether you’re looking to launch a new product, enhance an existing one, or streamline complex internal processes, our team is equipped to guide you through every stage of your digital experience transformation.
Are you ready to achieve a complete digital experience transformation for your product or user experience? Cardinal Peak provides expert advice, rapid budget estimates, and detailed timeline projections for your engineering project or product development challenge. Contact us today to discuss how our UX design workshops and usability testing services can help you achieve your goals and build a truly exceptional product.
