7 ms·

Designing Up Banking

112 points by merricksb 6y ago

J_tt 6y ago
I've been with Up as my primary bank for almost 2 years now, overall it's been a very satisfying experience and I've enjoyed watching the features grow (splitting inbound salary between savers and merchant categorisation and statistics are my favorites). They've also launched a (read only) API which is exciting, as according to their (very nice and in depth) road map it will become more fully featured in future. I've managed to bring a few friends to the platform which all have enjoyed it as well. There's also some pretty good blog posts on the background technology, which are always fascinating to read.
skc 6y ago
That was a surprisingly fun read.
- wombatmobile 6y ago
  I thought it read like an ad for a bank and wondered why I was seeing it on HN. Give it a chance, I said to myself, and kept reading to see if there was more to it. It seems to be a show and tell by someone who has designed a banking app, telling us the merits they perceive in every design decision they've made. This bank looks a little better than the shitty old bank I bank with, but I'm not going to change. Why? It's not that I don't hate my lazy, arrogant, selfish, sexist, boorish old bank. It's that I don't want or need an opportunity to nurture a relationship through frequent interactions, or to be more engaged with my money, or to encourage better financial literacy, or to check my balance more regularly. I am already confident and connected to my finances. What I really want is fewer people trying to sell me things I don't need or care about. Are these people those people? After 10 minutes of reading I wasn't sure, so I decided it would be easier to do nothing.
  - tomhoward 6y ago
    It's not for everyone. But as you can see in some comments here and on Twitter, the people who love it, really love it, which is not something you can say about the big old banks. They know full well they're not going to win over people who are already established with a major bank. So their very deliberate strategy is to appeal to young people, who are perhaps just getting a bank account for the first time or at least are not yet deeply entwined with a bank, and then hoping to keep them for long enough that they become high-value customers over the next 10-20 years. So if you're not a young person and/or if you already have an attachment to a bank, you're not really in their target audience. (Edited last line for clarity.)
    - andi999 6y ago
      "So if you're not a young person without an existing attachment to a bank, it's not really for you." This seem like a non-sequitor to me.
      - tomhoward 6y ago
        I edited the last line in the hope of making it more clear, though I'm not sure what exactly made it a non-sequitur. Every company/product has a target audience - i.e., a profile for the kind of person they're most trying to reach. By definition, it excludes a lot of people.
        andi999 6y ago
        If it were a social network, or dating site or disco I agree, age is a characterisc. For banking you need to use other characteristic than age, like 'low income, unsteady job likes/dislikes flashy interfaces' or whatever. And it doesnt mean that a few older ppl do not have the same needs. Large fractions of other agegroups might share the same characteristics you took from your target group. Of course if the targeting is 'is naive and cannot tell a bad deal from a good one' then I agree, experience with age probably spoils it.
        tomhoward 6y ago
rewq4321 6y ago
Great to see so many new user-friendly fin-tech apps gaining traction these last few years. Revolut recently launched out of beta in Australia, and they have disposable cards and virtual cards, which was a huge selling point for me. It's absurd that we had to essentially hand over the password of our bank account to random online sellers and let them pull the money out, instead of just sending them some money. It's an outdated model. With disposable cards we're one step closer to a sane system of online payments. I also don't understand why Up/Bendigo decided to disincentivise putting all my money in my Up account. IIRC they lower interest rates on your savings if you have too much in the account? Strange.
- tshanmu 6y ago
  Request to pay is much safer: https://www.requesttopay.co.uk/ https://www.requesttopay.co.uk/ Disposable cards just shifts the problem and still subsidises visa/mc.
  - rewq4321 6y ago
    Oh that gives me hope! Thank you for sharing. I hope this sort of thing quickly becomes a standard around the world. I wonder if the web's Payment Request API has support for this? You'd think so from the name, but I can't find any details. It seems that it's just an API to hand over your bank password to the online store. Edit: Wait, this requires giving the seller my home address along with my bank details? Maybe I misunderstand. I shouldn't even have to give my name or my bank details (which can obviously be used to personally identify me) - I should be able to generate a unique code (which includes the bank's id) that I give to the seller - like with the disposable cards (except that requires my name too - and they can draw as much money as they want, which is obviously bad).
- deecewan 6y ago
  There is no lowering of your rates if you have too much. It's just that the bonus interest rate only applies to the first $50k you have in your Saver accounts (cumulative). I.e. if you have $51k, you'll only get the bonus interest rate on $50k of that. The remaining $1k only gets the base interest rate. You can see more on the pricing page [1] Disclosure: Up employee. Not financial advice, etc, etc. [1]: https://up.com.au/pricing/ https://up.com.au/pricing/
rvz 6y ago
Interesting read, but a growing trend in these apps is the overuse of animations, especially placing them in the sign up process and it gets in the way of the user's action. I want to sign up and use the app as fast as possible rather than wait for your slow animations and transitions to finish in order to show the "Next" button. I don't mind about the easter eggs as long as they don't interfere in why I'm using the app, but overall it is 'well presented'.
- J_tt 6y ago
  In the everyday experience of the app there's very little of those animations, especially routine processes (eg transfering) the whole experience feels quite snappy
- eswat 6y ago
  Seems these animations are not really in the sign up process, rather at certain completion milestones. From the article: > [We improved the Sign-up flow by] Removing anything extra like images, so you could move faster without distractions.
twic 6y ago
> A moment that should feel significant and celebratory — you’ve literally just opened a bank account in under 3 minutes through your phone — feels clinical and unimpressive. But why? Is this really of any benefit? To who? This whole thing reads like a designer's daydream.
- J_tt 6y ago
  As someone who has convinced others to move to the bank so they can use PayID, the fact it's so quick is definitely something to celebrate since most people will be hesitant to move if the process is long.
- tomhoward 6y ago
  The benefit is (a) to the user, who has a better understanding of the product's utility and a more enjoyable experience when using it; and (b) to the business, as their users will use it more and tell others about it if they have a pleasing experience. The human reward system is a real thing, and activating it can significantly improve the user's connection to the product, and increase their propensity to keep using it and to recommend it to others. I know the author of this post - he worked for my startup 6-8 years ago. He's not a "daydreaming" designer; he thinks very deeply about both user needs/preferences and business outcomes. It's the style of thinking that has long given Apple its design edge. Some dismiss it as frivolous, but that overlooks the real utility it provides. Sure, not everyone responds to it; human cognition and emotion is diverse. But for the kind of user this product is aimed at, it works really well.
- JackFr 6y ago
  It seems like a good balance when you've streamlined your onboarding to the point that its a non-event. From a UX perspective you actually need to assure the user that something important has happened. If they did this for everything it would grow tiresome pretty quickly, but since opening accounts is done once, or at least rather infrequently you don't run that risk.
- robgough 6y ago
  I opened an account with a UK challenger bank while sat in a bar, and within 5 minutes had paid for a round with Apple Pay (which could be set up before the card arrived). It was pretty damn impressive. It might seem of limited utility, but I did similar when I set up my business account (though admittedly I was buying software licenses rather than beer) and that was genuinely useful. Not that I couldn't have waited, but it was nice to not have to.
llimos 6y ago
I do like the idea of the celebratory animation. It is a big deal to have completed the process, and one you're only likely to do once every several years. But I wonder if they thought about the effect of the flashing lights on someone with epilepsy, especially since they wouldn't be expecting it from a banking app? Full disclosure: I do not have epilepsy and nor do I know anything about it so I don't know if this is really a problem or not
- ficklepickle 6y ago
  In CSS, there is the "prefers-reduced-motion" media query for this purpose.
  - fomine3 6y ago
    It's good to know, how many sites supports?
hestefisk 6y ago
Up customer here as well. Far best experience out of any Aussie neobank. Not as popular as Volt, which, in my mind, is hugely overrated.
nojs 6y ago
I’ve been with Up for around 6 months and have been really impressed. The experience is an order of magnitude better than any of the big 4 and the direction they are going looks really promising (particularly the API). Their monthly email newsletter is also a fun read, I think they really get the tone right in their messaging.
declanjscott 6y ago
I'm with Up and they're the best bank I've ever been with. They pump out features fast and often. Their API is the first I've seen in Aus. Their app is really nice to use and extremely useable. Possibly my favourite app!
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  Great stuff. Now, how sure are you of their security, because that's far more important than (other) features.
  - tomhoward 6y ago
    The banking facility is provided by Australia's 5th largest bank [1], which has been in business since 1858, and is as solid as any bank. Up Banking provides the user-facing front-end, which of course needs to be highly secure too, but the tech team at Up Banking is one of the best teams in Australia (it caused quite a bit of buzz in the AU developer community when the team was quietly coming together to start working on this a few years ago; As a fun fact, some of the initial dev team previously worked together building The Conversation [2], which is a huge platform and major content source here on HN). So, they know what they're doing and they know who to bring in to ensure they've done everything right. Those interested may want to check out this interview with the founder/CEO [3]. My interest: no personal stake or involvement, but am friends and former colleagues with a few of the team members (including the author of this post), and I know of several others by reputation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendigo_and_Adelaide_Bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendigo_and_Adelaide_Bank [2] https://theconversation.com/ https://theconversation.com/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C64e_9kgb-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C64e_9kgb-s
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      A decent answer, thanks.
      - tomhoward 6y ago
PascLeRasc 6y ago
Thank you for recognizing the appeal of tab navigation! Simple is the US version of this kind of bank, and they just switched the iOS version to hamburger menu navigation to have parity with Android, and it's been a step backwards in usability. Tab navigation, to me at least, helps separate things the same way we use tabs on a web browser - one is for what I have now, one is for savings, one is for transfers, etc.
- yurishimo 6y ago
  Simple customer since 2013 here. The iOS menu debacle has been my biggest complaint with them in recent memory. Overall that has been a step backwards in their UX. I can't prove it, but I think they switched to React native for parts of the app to enable more code sharing, hence the jank interaction experience. I remember when it launched, you couldn't swipe to pull out the sidebar. You can open it via a swipe now, but you still can't close it by swiping. I really like their philosophy around goals/expenses however, so if I ever switched, it would need to be to a competitor with similar features. Simple also has a really robust website with lots of historical data and charts available. Just the other day I was able to track down $300 I withdrew from an ATM to buy a PS4 back in 2015, even without tagging the transactions in the first place. It seems after they moved to BBVA, some of the original development team left and features have slowed a lot. Hopefully as more of these specialized banks start catching up, they will start innovating again.
nipponese 6y ago
Having worked on design teams at tech companies for more than a decade, I can say with confidence that there are a lot of bullshitters in the industry. This piece is a really rare, thoughtful gem, communicated without pretentious sheen.
- Mobius01 6y ago
  As a designer in a similar industry, I can confirm that I despise half my peers for their lack of competence and general ability to bullshit their way to a paycheck. The design industry has been irrevocably infested by people that speak a lot but can’t execute anything.
doonesbury 6y ago
The empowering, belief, culture slant was too much for me personally --- not aware I was going to Sunday mass (sarcasm) here --- but glad to hear people like their stuff. Here's a question they don't get into: do they store transactions on the cloud? If not, why not?
AtTheLast 6y ago
One of the best design write ups I've read in long time. They nailed the fundamentals first, then moved on to the surprise and delight features. I believe that is fundamental for anyone doing UX/Design. I've seen way to many companies try to gamify or add silly features to improve the user experience, when in fact it ends up doing the opposite.
jw360 6y ago
ING did this already tens of years ago, about time you wake up.

112 points by merricksb 6y ago

J_tt 6y ago

I've been with Up as my primary bank for almost 2 years now, overall it's been a very satisfying experience and I've enjoyed watching the features grow (splitting inbound salary between savers and merchant categorisation and statistics are my favorites). They've also launched a (read only) API which is exciting, as according to their (very nice and in depth) road map it will become more fully featured in future. I've managed to bring a few friends to the platform which all have enjoyed it as well. There's also some pretty good blog posts on the background technology, which are always fascinating to read.

skc 6y ago

That was a surprisingly fun read.

wombatmobile 6y ago
I thought it read like an ad for a bank and wondered why I was seeing it on HN. Give it a chance, I said to myself, and kept reading to see if there was more to it. It seems to be a show and tell by someone who has designed a banking app, telling us the merits they perceive in every design decision they've made. This bank looks a little better than the shitty old bank I bank with, but I'm not going to change. Why? It's not that I don't hate my lazy, arrogant, selfish, sexist, boorish old bank. It's that I don't want or need an opportunity to nurture a relationship through frequent interactions, or to be more engaged with my money, or to encourage better financial literacy, or to check my balance more regularly. I am already confident and connected to my finances. What I really want is fewer people trying to sell me things I don't need or care about. Are these people those people? After 10 minutes of reading I wasn't sure, so I decided it would be easier to do nothing.
- tomhoward 6y ago
  It's not for everyone. But as you can see in some comments here and on Twitter, the people who love it, really love it, which is not something you can say about the big old banks. They know full well they're not going to win over people who are already established with a major bank. So their very deliberate strategy is to appeal to young people, who are perhaps just getting a bank account for the first time or at least are not yet deeply entwined with a bank, and then hoping to keep them for long enough that they become high-value customers over the next 10-20 years. So if you're not a young person and/or if you already have an attachment to a bank, you're not really in their target audience. (Edited last line for clarity.)
  - andi999 6y ago
    "So if you're not a young person without an existing attachment to a bank, it's not really for you." This seem like a non-sequitor to me.
    - tomhoward 6y ago
      I edited the last line in the hope of making it more clear, though I'm not sure what exactly made it a non-sequitur. Every company/product has a target audience - i.e., a profile for the kind of person they're most trying to reach. By definition, it excludes a lot of people.
      - andi999 6y ago
        If it were a social network, or dating site or disco I agree, age is a characterisc. For banking you need to use other characteristic than age, like 'low income, unsteady job likes/dislikes flashy interfaces' or whatever. And it doesnt mean that a few older ppl do not have the same needs. Large fractions of other agegroups might share the same characteristics you took from your target group. Of course if the targeting is 'is naive and cannot tell a bad deal from a good one' then I agree, experience with age probably spoils it.
        tomhoward 6y ago

rewq4321 6y ago

Great to see so many new user-friendly fin-tech apps gaining traction these last few years. Revolut recently launched out of beta in Australia, and they have disposable cards and virtual cards, which was a huge selling point for me. It's absurd that we had to essentially hand over the password of our bank account to random online sellers and let them pull the money out, instead of just sending them some money. It's an outdated model. With disposable cards we're one step closer to a sane system of online payments. I also don't understand why Up/Bendigo decided to disincentivise putting all my money in my Up account. IIRC they lower interest rates on your savings if you have too much in the account? Strange.

tshanmu 6y ago
Request to pay is much safer: https://www.requesttopay.co.uk/ https://www.requesttopay.co.uk/ Disposable cards just shifts the problem and still subsidises visa/mc.
- rewq4321 6y ago
  Oh that gives me hope! Thank you for sharing. I hope this sort of thing quickly becomes a standard around the world. I wonder if the web's Payment Request API has support for this? You'd think so from the name, but I can't find any details. It seems that it's just an API to hand over your bank password to the online store. Edit: Wait, this requires giving the seller my home address along with my bank details? Maybe I misunderstand. I shouldn't even have to give my name or my bank details (which can obviously be used to personally identify me) - I should be able to generate a unique code (which includes the bank's id) that I give to the seller - like with the disposable cards (except that requires my name too - and they can draw as much money as they want, which is obviously bad).
deecewan 6y ago
There is no lowering of your rates if you have too much. It's just that the bonus interest rate only applies to the first $50k you have in your Saver accounts (cumulative). I.e. if you have $51k, you'll only get the bonus interest rate on $50k of that. The remaining $1k only gets the base interest rate. You can see more on the pricing page [1] Disclosure: Up employee. Not financial advice, etc, etc. [1]: https://up.com.au/pricing/ https://up.com.au/pricing/

rvz 6y ago

Interesting read, but a growing trend in these apps is the overuse of animations, especially placing them in the sign up process and it gets in the way of the user's action. I want to sign up and use the app as fast as possible rather than wait for your slow animations and transitions to finish in order to show the "Next" button. I don't mind about the easter eggs as long as they don't interfere in why I'm using the app, but overall it is 'well presented'.

J_tt 6y ago
In the everyday experience of the app there's very little of those animations, especially routine processes (eg transfering) the whole experience feels quite snappy
eswat 6y ago
Seems these animations are not really in the sign up process, rather at certain completion milestones. From the article: > [We improved the Sign-up flow by] Removing anything extra like images, so you could move faster without distractions.

twic 6y ago

> A moment that should feel significant and celebratory — you’ve literally just opened a bank account in under 3 minutes through your phone — feels clinical and unimpressive. But why? Is this really of any benefit? To who? This whole thing reads like a designer's daydream.

J_tt 6y ago
As someone who has convinced others to move to the bank so they can use PayID, the fact it's so quick is definitely something to celebrate since most people will be hesitant to move if the process is long.
tomhoward 6y ago
The benefit is (a) to the user, who has a better understanding of the product's utility and a more enjoyable experience when using it; and (b) to the business, as their users will use it more and tell others about it if they have a pleasing experience. The human reward system is a real thing, and activating it can significantly improve the user's connection to the product, and increase their propensity to keep using it and to recommend it to others. I know the author of this post - he worked for my startup 6-8 years ago. He's not a "daydreaming" designer; he thinks very deeply about both user needs/preferences and business outcomes. It's the style of thinking that has long given Apple its design edge. Some dismiss it as frivolous, but that overlooks the real utility it provides. Sure, not everyone responds to it; human cognition and emotion is diverse. But for the kind of user this product is aimed at, it works really well.
JackFr 6y ago
It seems like a good balance when you've streamlined your onboarding to the point that its a non-event. From a UX perspective you actually need to assure the user that something important has happened. If they did this for everything it would grow tiresome pretty quickly, but since opening accounts is done once, or at least rather infrequently you don't run that risk.
robgough 6y ago
I opened an account with a UK challenger bank while sat in a bar, and within 5 minutes had paid for a round with Apple Pay (which could be set up before the card arrived). It was pretty damn impressive. It might seem of limited utility, but I did similar when I set up my business account (though admittedly I was buying software licenses rather than beer) and that was genuinely useful. Not that I couldn't have waited, but it was nice to not have to.

llimos 6y ago

I do like the idea of the celebratory animation. It is a big deal to have completed the process, and one you're only likely to do once every several years. But I wonder if they thought about the effect of the flashing lights on someone with epilepsy, especially since they wouldn't be expecting it from a banking app? Full disclosure: I do not have epilepsy and nor do I know anything about it so I don't know if this is really a problem or not

ficklepickle 6y ago
In CSS, there is the "prefers-reduced-motion" media query for this purpose.
- fomine3 6y ago
  It's good to know, how many sites supports?

hestefisk 6y ago

Up customer here as well. Far best experience out of any Aussie neobank. Not as popular as Volt, which, in my mind, is hugely overrated.

nojs 6y ago

I’ve been with Up for around 6 months and have been really impressed. The experience is an order of magnitude better than any of the big 4 and the direction they are going looks really promising (particularly the API). Their monthly email newsletter is also a fun read, I think they really get the tone right in their messaging.

declanjscott 6y ago

I'm with Up and they're the best bank I've ever been with. They pump out features fast and often. Their API is the first I've seen in Aus. Their app is really nice to use and extremely useable. Possibly my favourite app!

throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
Great stuff. Now, how sure are you of their security, because that's far more important than (other) features.
- tomhoward 6y ago
  The banking facility is provided by Australia's 5th largest bank [1], which has been in business since 1858, and is as solid as any bank. Up Banking provides the user-facing front-end, which of course needs to be highly secure too, but the tech team at Up Banking is one of the best teams in Australia (it caused quite a bit of buzz in the AU developer community when the team was quietly coming together to start working on this a few years ago; As a fun fact, some of the initial dev team previously worked together building The Conversation [2], which is a huge platform and major content source here on HN). So, they know what they're doing and they know who to bring in to ensure they've done everything right. Those interested may want to check out this interview with the founder/CEO [3]. My interest: no personal stake or involvement, but am friends and former colleagues with a few of the team members (including the author of this post), and I know of several others by reputation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendigo_and_Adelaide_Bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendigo_and_Adelaide_Bank [2] https://theconversation.com/ https://theconversation.com/ [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C64e_9kgb-s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C64e_9kgb-s
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    A decent answer, thanks.
    - tomhoward 6y ago

PascLeRasc 6y ago

Thank you for recognizing the appeal of tab navigation! Simple is the US version of this kind of bank, and they just switched the iOS version to hamburger menu navigation to have parity with Android, and it's been a step backwards in usability. Tab navigation, to me at least, helps separate things the same way we use tabs on a web browser - one is for what I have now, one is for savings, one is for transfers, etc.

yurishimo 6y ago
Simple customer since 2013 here. The iOS menu debacle has been my biggest complaint with them in recent memory. Overall that has been a step backwards in their UX. I can't prove it, but I think they switched to React native for parts of the app to enable more code sharing, hence the jank interaction experience. I remember when it launched, you couldn't swipe to pull out the sidebar. You can open it via a swipe now, but you still can't close it by swiping. I really like their philosophy around goals/expenses however, so if I ever switched, it would need to be to a competitor with similar features. Simple also has a really robust website with lots of historical data and charts available. Just the other day I was able to track down $300 I withdrew from an ATM to buy a PS4 back in 2015, even without tagging the transactions in the first place. It seems after they moved to BBVA, some of the original development team left and features have slowed a lot. Hopefully as more of these specialized banks start catching up, they will start innovating again.

nipponese 6y ago

Having worked on design teams at tech companies for more than a decade, I can say with confidence that there are a lot of bullshitters in the industry. This piece is a really rare, thoughtful gem, communicated without pretentious sheen.

Mobius01 6y ago
As a designer in a similar industry, I can confirm that I despise half my peers for their lack of competence and general ability to bullshit their way to a paycheck. The design industry has been irrevocably infested by people that speak a lot but can’t execute anything.

doonesbury 6y ago

The empowering, belief, culture slant was too much for me personally --- not aware I was going to Sunday mass (sarcasm) here --- but glad to hear people like their stuff. Here's a question they don't get into: do they store transactions on the cloud? If not, why not?

AtTheLast 6y ago

One of the best design write ups I've read in long time. They nailed the fundamentals first, then moved on to the surprise and delight features. I believe that is fundamental for anyone doing UX/Design. I've seen way to many companies try to gamify or add silly features to improve the user experience, when in fact it ends up doing the opposite.

jw360 6y ago

ING did this already tens of years ago, about time you wake up.