The original team consisted of one UX designer and 3 BAs. I was hired along with another UX designer to create three Designer/BA teams. Each team was given one or more areas of the application to research, design, test, and implement.

I created a pattern library that was used as building blocks to keep the look and feel consistent across the application. As teams were focused on different areas of the application, a lot of the research and usability challenges were unique to each team.

The application purchased to replace Zion's core banking software was not as ready for the US market as we believed. The user experience was designed for a drastically different market in places like Dubai, India, and various European markets. A full analysis of their current user experience was needed to assess the gaps and discrepancies with our user base and business requirements.

Upon initial review, it became evident that their users were mostly mouse-based and very process driven. Many of the day-to-day account processing activities were offloaded to the user to keep response time in the system to an acceptable level.

Many of the modules required for the US market were missing from the application. The Teller module is used by about eight percent of our user base was not coded or even designed. These modules needed to be researched, and requirements written, prior to any design creation. Luckily Zions stores vast amounts of data regarding current usability and metrics.

I begin the design process by interviewing Subject Matter Experts and users to define pain points and possible gaps in the application. Many of these interviews were conducted onsite to properly observe the day-to-day duties and assess environmental pain points.

I used the data gathered from these interviews to create personas, user stories, and process flows that assist in properly defining the problem to be solved.

Utilizing the gathered data, I created multiple wireframes showing proposed solutions for the new screen. The wireframes and data were taken to the subject matter experts and various end users for an in-depth review. Once the initial review was complete, I redesigned and updated the wireframes based on their feedback. This iterative cycle continued until I believed we were solid enough on the solution to begin user testing.

Using wireframes and functional prototypes, I conducted weekly user tests to verfiy assumptions or problematic areas of the screen. These tests ranged from A-B Testing to functional prototype walkthroughs depending on the necessary requirements.

Recently my user testing methodology changed from a large scale monthly moderated testing schedule. My team now performs weekly unmoderated tests to quickly answer questions and iterate through design decisions. The speed and effeciency of weekly unmoderated testing more than makes up for the loss of personal interaction with the user.

Most of my testing on BaNCS revolved around the "Time to Complete" metric. In the bank's branches our users are servicing hundreds of customers per day. Something as small as a 4-5 second load time drastically increased frustration with the application. Every effort was made to streamline data entry and field comprehension to decrease our user's time to complete.

Testing and iterating during each sprint allowed us to streamline each screen as much as possible. Once each pain point had been resolved to a satisfactory level, a functional specification was created and sent offshore for development.

When a code drop was received from our developers offshore, it was reviewed and tested again in our onsite lab. Users were brought in and allowed to run through their daily activities. Using these user acceptance sessions, I was able to assess if the solution properly addressed the user's pain points and allowed them to meet their goals.

TCS BaNCS is an internal application used for processing day-to-day transactions in a financial institution. It supplies the back end, interfacing, reporting, and the front-end GUI. Our users are all employees of the company, but the speed and usability of the software directly affects our customers.

As our users are all employees and the application is extremely vast, there is expected to be training on the software prior to use. Our product design efforts have greatly decreased the amount of training required as well as reduced the time to complete a transaction by over two minutes.

As the project is still under development, I can only sum up my experience so far.

User testing is a MUST! If you’re not user testing prior to release, you’ll be user testing after at a much higher cost. I believe many of the roadblocks we've encountered during this project would have been found if the product would have been fully user tested earlier in the development cycle. Every application can be improved through user testing. Product design is smilar to art in that it is never finished, only abandoned. Working with offshore developers can be difficult at times due to scheduling and communication, but is still a viable solution.

This project has been an extremely difficult and fulfilling learning experience. I believe I have grown almost as much as a product designer during the three years on this project as I did during the eleven years I spent designing at Evelyn.