International Trade finance
User research and Interview for
Corporate Banking
International trade finance is one of the product of corporate banking project.
This feature is a powerful and convenient online international transaction, which allows customers to access financial services, and submit all necessary documents at once For instance, opening Letter of Credit(L/C), trade financing application, make payment, and more.
After the first MVP(Minimum viable product) launched in 2021, the next phase of the project is to enhance the functionality by adding international trade finance to the product. It was our responsibility to conduct the user research during the discovery phase to initiate and explore the opportunities and directions.
Responsibilities
User research
User interview
Workshop organizer
Year
2021
Discover
As we are in the beginning phase of product development. We aimed to inspire, explore and choose new directions and opportunities for the future product.
Method of research
Research methods in this phase can vary greatly because we would benefit from combining insights. The team decided to select these 2 methods for the discovery phase
1. User interview and Concept test (remote interview)
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To understand and evaluate an initial product and competitor analysis (How the existing product works today and what are the differences among competitors?)
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To uncover user needs or insights including the experiences they have throughout their journey (What are their current behavior and needs?)
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To identify improvement opportunities to meet user expectations (What are the values we can provide to our users?)
2. Online surveys
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To collect the attitudes and self-reported data that can help discover important ideas or issues
Process
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Team of 7 members (6 designers and 1 researcher)
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My responsibilities — interview question preparation, remote interview conduction, note-taking, data analysis
1. User interview and Concept test
Planning
We divided the team into 2 groups and ran the work in parallel. The first team mainly focused on planning the schedule, and the second team was in charge of material preparation( for example, guidelines, interview script, interview questions and template)
I worked along with another designer and created a set of interview questions and scripts.
A snippet of interview questions
The structure of the question was divided into 5 parts according to the process of trade finance. Awareness, pre-shipment, shipment, post-shipment, and business opportunities.
The problem we faced during the process — Too many interview questions
Unfortunately, after we listed out all the questions, we found that there were so many things we wanted to ask and we could not finish them within 90 minutes.
How we solved the problem?
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The questions were prioritized into 3 categories(high, medium, and low) and checked against our objectives. Low-priority questions were mostly cut off.
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Doing a dry run interview session to calculate approximate time per session and to check whether the arrangement of interview questions was appropriate.
Conduct interview
We conducted the interviews with 25 companies remotely using Microsoft Teams.
After each session, each team had a responsibility to put the answers and records into templates we had prepared.
Online surveys
We also conducted online surveys at the same time we started remote interviews.
We used Google forms and provided the surveys to 15-20 companies from different segments (sSME, SME, Mass Corp, Large Corp)
2. Data analysis
Analyze, synthesize and identify the theme and key aspects
We summarize the theme and key aspects by grouping the insights we found from the interviews, then highlighted and backed up them with quotes(what user says) and behavior(what users do)
The problem we faced during process — Different segments, different needs
Each segment tended to have specific needs due to different constraints when doing international trade. It was challenging to segment their needs and problems into a single theme.
How we solved the problem?
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We stepped back and looked at the overall image. Broke down the key behaviors and traits, then mapped them into the scales to compare each segment. Scale mapping helped us to understand the needs of each segment, during grouping the theme and key aspects.
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Outcomes
We created report and shared the insights and key behaviors to clients
Explore and analyze
After we understand the needs and insights from the user's standpoint, the next step was to explore the requirements and constraints to narrow down the design scope and address user needs appropriately.
Method of research
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Requirements and constraints gathering
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Journey map
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User flows
Process
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Team of 5 members (4 designers and 1 researcher)
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My responsibilities — requirement gathering, personas building, user journey creating, user flows creating)
Requirements and constraints gathering
We collected more information from sales, support staff, legal team, and product team. The next step is to find the constraints and requirements from their point of view and how do we strive for them with the insights we got to improve user experience?
Create user personas
Persona of users from different segment
Refer to the user needs, goals, and pain points from the interview we conducted at the discovery phase.
Create as-is journeys
We created the as-is journey maps to visualize the process that users go through in order to accomplish international trade from awareness to post-shipment.
Workshop
This workshop is the opportunity which allows us to discuss visions and missions of the product with our clients. In the workshop, we had a conversation about where the risky areas are for losing customers along the way. Without it, agreement on how to improve the experience would never take place.
User flows
We explored the design possibilities by considering different approaches and scenarios of each international trade product. Brainstorming the ideas with the product team in order to identify the best solution to retain.
Next action
Obtain feedback on early-stage flows by walking through the design with product owners, stakeholders, and legal experts. Ask for the reactions and, then ask for feedback from our hypothesis, to enable people to interact and speak up in the group.
