Year
2015
Deliverables
- Concept
- Design
- Frontend Development
Home loan calculator for Erste Bank and Sparkassen
Together with the savings banks, Erste Bank represents one of the largest banking groups in Austria. It comprises over 1,100 branches in Austria and serves more than 3.4 million customers.
s IT Solutions AT Spardat GmbH is the IT provider of Erste Group and the savings banks in Austria. In addition to providing cost-effective, high-quality services and solutions, s IT supports the harmonization of applications and standards.
dmcgroup was commissioned by s IT to jointly support Erste Bank and Sparkassen in the planning, conception and design as well as (front-end) technical implementation of the new housing loan calculator.
What counts are the people
This is reflected in the requirements for the redesign of the calculator:
- Self-explanatory & intuitive to use
- Quickly get results, “Can I afford this?”
- Simple and hurdle-free calculation of a home loan including state-specific subsidies
- User activation & lead generation
- Can also be used by account managers together with customers
With “design thinking” methods, continuous project support through user research and agile working methods, a joint team of dmcgroup and Erste Bank developed and optimized the project from the first concept sketches to the launch.
User-centric and agile implementation
The process therefore began with a comprehensive inception phase, which provided the basis for the conceptual design and whose findings continuously accompanied the project. Even beyond that, the process was continuously accompanied by workshops:
- Persona workshops for the development and enrichment of typical customer profiles
- Story workshops for the formulation of requirements in the form of user stories
- Stakeholder workshops for ongoing coordination with a wide range of relevant project players as an essential factor for project success
The multidisciplinary, international team consisting of dmcgroup, s IT Solutions, Erste Bank and other offshore partners (responsible for development and testing) opted for an agile approach with daily stand-ups, 3-week sprints and regular retrospectives to improve the project flow.
This form of project culture emphasizes the personal, daily cooperation of all participants at eye level and was a decisive factor in the success of the project.
With user interviews on design decisions
Continuous user interviews were used in the design and implementation process to test and validate hypotheses. The insights gained from the user interviews and software testing enabled the team to make better design decisions.
Clear interaction design that focuses on user goals
The following fundamental design principles were used in the design of the new home loan calculator to make the experience as intuitive as possible for users: