Modernising Nationwide's banking app
UX writing and content strategy for Nationwide 2021 to present.
The brief
Nationwide's banking app was old. They wanted it to rival the neo banks like Monzo and Starling.​
Challenges
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I was the first content designer to join the app team. And there was no app writing guidance.
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The new app would be built using native components for iOS and Android – which was new territory for a lot of the team.
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The app needed to be restructured and have enough space for new features.
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The old app's content had not been updated in nearly a decade. It wasn't easy to read, and it wasn't on brand.
Highlights
It's difficult to pinpoint a neat little case study from my work on the banking app. It has been a wild ride full of twists and turns – though always interesting and exciting. Here are some highlights.
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App writing guidance
Nationwide had a lot of writing guidance and tone of voice documentation. Most of it was for print. Some of it was for web and email. But writing for an app is very different. Instead of explaining something in one paragraph, you get one sentence. Or even a single word.
So, my first task as app content designer was to reinterpret our tone of voice for app. After some voice chart mapping and consultation, I created writing examples with dos and don'ts. These early guidelines helped introduce all new content designers to the app when they joined the team.
Accessibility champion
Most designers have good knowledge of the WCAG guidelines. But these are specific to web accessibility. Designing an accessible Android or iOS app is not as widely understood. ​​​We discovered early on in the build that we needed to up our game.
Since then, native app accessibility has been a special interest for me. And I have become an unofficial expert – raising tickets, live proofing, educating developers and designers, and carrying out my own accessibility reviews.
Everything I work on has detailed accessibility documentation to ensure the developers know exactly what to do. They use my work as an example of what good documentation looks like.​​
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Information architecture and top tasks
The consultancy we worked with wanted to completely restructure the app. But they hadn't thought as far ahead as labelling and grouping.
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Using Optimal, we ran a series of card sort tests to understand:
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What things do our users do the most in the app?
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What do our users expect to see prioritised in the app?
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Where do our users expect to find things in the app?
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How do they talk about each thing?
I also did a top task analysis for current account holders.
To do this, I looked at:
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analytics for the existing app visitor traffic
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the card sort research
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multiple pieces of other research in the archives including industry-wide insights and user consultations
These pieces of work have formed the basis for how our users find things like managing their cards or making a payment. They also informed the structure of our current account screens.​​​​​​​
​​Paying someone new
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I worked on the redesign of the 'paying someone new' journey in our app. My team included a UX designer, UI designer, and User Researcher.
Together, we carried out research on our customers and competitors. We tested, iterated and completed the work at lightning speed.
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One highlight was 'confirmation of payee'. This is the point in the journey where we check that the payee account details match.
Not only did this have complex regulatory requirements and some very tough stakeholders, but we also had to satisfy consumer duty requirements. This involved 3 rounds of comprehension testing on 6 error scenarios. I also halved the word count and lowered the reading age by an average of 3 grades.
The result is a journey that is now ranked second by Finalta in their customer experience comparison with our competitors. We were previously ranked seventh.
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