Taishin Bank
Credit Card Reward System
Redesigned information architecture to make complex features easy-to-use.
Client
Taishin Bank(Richart Life group)
Project Type
UX Design
My Role
Led the UX redesign of the system, including information architecture, UI layouts, and stakeholder communication
Worked with PM, engineers, and UI designers to create a feasible solution that aligns with the existing design system
Based on the client's business goal, conducted additional secondary research to inform the design
Overview
My team at BORING Design Lab worked with Taishin Bank, one of the top three banks in Taiwan, to redesign the credit card reward management feature in their financial super app, Richart Life. Taishin Bank has 15+ million credit card customers who generate more than 50 billion Taishin Points(credit card reward units) each year. The goal of this project is to design a coherent and delightful experience for users to understand and use their Taishin Points.
I led the UX design part of the project. I first conducted additional secondary research based on the client's business goal, then translated findings from the research into a design concept - a mobile kiosk on which users can use their points in different ways. I designed every user flow and worked with UI designers and frontend engineers to implement Tashin Bank’s existing design system onto each page.
The redesigned system was a huge success. Compared to the previous version, the monthly active users of the new system increased by ~700%. Executives at Taishi Bank were very happy with the result. This project opened the continuous collaboration between BORING Design Lab and Taishi Bank.
The final solution is a dashboard for users to access and manage their Tiashin Points
01 Context
Taishin Bank provided an online portal for users to redeem their points, but
The majority of the users redeemed the points over the phone.
Taishin provided diverse ways to redeem their points, including reward transfers, shop with points, statement credits, etc. Users are not aware of most of them.
Most users choose to use their Taishin Points as thestatement credit, which was the least cost-effective use of points for Taishin Bank.
This is a lose-lose scenario.
Users didn't get to enjoy the additional benefit that come with the Taishin Points, and the bank failed to save cost.
02 Initial Discovery
Why is this the case? Taishin Bank provided us with a usability report, which pointed out a lot of the usability issues. On top of these surface issues, I want to gain a better understanding of the reason behind those issues.
I began my design process by understanding the product.
Combing through each user flow of the existing system
The detailed cognitive walkthrough and usability report gave me a lot of insights. However, to make Taishin Bank's service stand out, it was not enough to just look at the app.
I want to understand the overall credit card reward market in Taiwan, and where Taishi Bank was in the market.
03 Secondary Research
The credit card market in Taiwan is complex. Each bank will launch several new credit cards with new benefits every year. Customers are used to the "complexity" of using credit cards.
Due to budgetary and time constraints, I chose to do additional secondary research instead of primary ones. Methods I used in this stage were:
Competitive Analysis
I analyzed the services and products of Taishin Bank's main competitors
Literature Review
I reviewed academic research and industry reports related to the use of credit card rewards
Online Ethnography
I observed users' attitudes and thoughts toward Taishin and other banks' credit card service.
We have the following findings from the research:
Our App
Compared to the competitors, Taishin Points provide great value for customers and diverse ways of redeeming them. However,
Our app was too hard to use
Customers acknowledge that Taishin Points provide good value but they are confused about how to redeem them with the app.
As a result, they chose the easiest way to redeem the points, which is over the phone, or use them as a statement credit.
Our Users
Based on the research, I generated these two personae to help the team understand the users.
Credit Card Researcher
Spend the efforts to do the research on credit card rewards
Usually have multiple credit cards
Open credit cards/Switch main cards frequently
“Good Enough” User
Choose the easiest way to redeem credit card rewards
Have one or two main credit cards
Use one card for several years
User Needs
I also summarized the following findings that are highly related to the problem space:
Integrated Digital Service
70% of the users use mobile apps to manage their credit card rewards, with the age group of users who choose to use mobile apps increasing every year. Integrated digital services(financial super apps) have the potential to provide touch points of different bank services and generate new revenue streams for the bank.
Consistent Experience
Users seek consistent experience from “payment” to “redeeming reward.” The customer experience is as important as the value of the reward.
Personalized Needs
Users from the new generation expect a simple and direct way to redeem credit card rewards that fits their personalized needs. Different user groups may value different rewards.
04 Challenge
Based on the research, I realized what we need is more than a surface-level redesign that addresses only the usability issues. We discussed this with the clients and decided to redesign the entire information architecture of the credit card reward management feature.
The central challenge of the redesign is:
Creating a simple mental model for users to access all features.
We want to deliver a complex set of features to two types of users. We want to help users to find the right feature quickly, while giving them space to explore Taishin's service
05 Ideation
I worked with the market team, other designers, and stakeholders from Taishin Bank to ideate brand images that combine the current brandings with Taishin Points.
This concept will not only inform the app design in a later stage but it will also be used by other teams at Taishin Bank for marketing and design of other products.
The existing brand image of Taishin Bank's credit card business revolved around a dog called "Richart." I facilitated several brainstorming sessions and created several mood boards with the market team and visual designers.
One of the mood boards created with the team
The final idea we landed on was a kiosk.
A kiosk in a park serves as a hub for communication, offering key information and guidance while providing convenient services. We want our design to serve the same purpose for Taishin Bank's customers.
06 Wireframe
I started the design process by looking at other services of a similar nature to ours. In the previous competitive analysis, I focused more on the business aspect; in this stage, I focused on the specific design of interfaces and collected all elements that have the "hub" concept.
My reference board
I created wireframes at different fidelities throughout the entire design process, from hand sketches for quick brainstorming to interactive prototypes to communicate with the stakeholders.
Wireframes at different fidelities
07 User Flows
Taishin Points have a lot of different features. I have to design a feasible solution for each feature to provide a consistent exprience for different user flows.
One of the many user flows
Because we were working with a bank, one of the challenges was to make sure each user flow was compliant with the legal requirements for a bank app. I also have to consider many edge cases.
Although not explicitly stated as a design principle, safety is at the core of the entire design process. I had extensive communication with the stakeholders at the bank and the engineering team to achieve this goal. The end product was several massive but thorough user flows.
One of the user flow in details
08 Final Design
After several rounds of iteration, we introduced our final design.
Reward Transfer was one of the highlighted features of Taishin Points. Taishin collaborated with other partners to allow customers to transfer their Taishin Points to other platforms at a discounted rate. The Reward Transfer feature provides value to the customers while saving costs for Taishin Bank.
However, the existing design implements the Reward Transfer feature with the module of a shopping system. It creates a wrong mental model and has poor usability when a user is transferring a large amount of points.
The Old Reward Transfer feature
The new design provides a simple and straightforward process for users to transfer Taishi Points.
There is a lot of information we need to communicate to the users, including their existing points, transfer ratio, specific regulations, etc. So we choose to keep the interface simple to avoid confusion and information overloading.
Although the concept and main user flow are simple, users have specific needs according to the usability report. There were several special user scenarios I needed to design and test, including:
when a user has different types of Taishin Points
when they enter a large number
when the Taishin Points and the target reward have non-standard transfer ratios
Lottery feature gave users the option to use one Taishin Point to participate in different prize pools. I want this feature to have a fun feeling while blending seamlessly into the current design system. The central challenge when designing this part was how to create a nuanced, fun experience of playing a game in a banking app.
Continuing with the kiosk analogy, the Lottery would be a gumball machine in the kiosk.
I worked closely with the engineers, visual and motion designers, and the client to come up with a feasible solution. Because of the nuances in crafting a game experience, I rapidly iterated a lot of interactive prototypes to simulate the final experience and to communicate with the team.
Figma prototypes built during the process
With the help of the team, I created an exprience that was simple yet engaging.
The visual elements blended well with the other elements in the interface, yet clearly stating that this part is slightly different.
The final prototype was built in Figma.
It was used to evaluate the concept and convey the motion design to engineers.
09 Impact
The design was delivered to Taishin Bank in March 2023 and implemented in June.
While specific data is not available, this project has the following impact:
User Engagement
The monthly active users of the credit card management features increased by ~700% after the redesign
Client Satisfaction
This project marked the beginning of a long-term collaboration between Taishin Bank and BORING Design Lab, where I took on the role of leading UXD of another Taishin Bank project shortly after.