Client
s IT Solutions
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.

For me, the collaboration with DMC is characterized by two things: High competence in design, front-end development and user research, coupled with a flexible approach to collaboration that is strongly oriented towards our needs as customers.

Hubert RosickaProject Lead | s IT Solutions

DMC colleagues help us to look at problems from new angles, to critically question approaches to solutions and to break new ground. In this way, an optimal product can be created through joint work.

Sonja Gstettenbauer, Sabine KarglBusiness Analysts | s IT Solutions

The consistently iterative and user-centric approach that we live by at the agency fell on really fertile ground with this project. We are already looking forward to our further journey together!

Sabine KresaProjekt Development & Consulting | dmcgroup
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Wohnkredit-Rechner Design
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dmcgroup

What counts are the people

Financing a dream home is one of the largest and most complex investments people make in their lifetime. This makes it all the more important for the bank to offer potential customers information and advice on the subject as simply and accessibly as possible.

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.

Wohnkredit-Rechner für Erste Bank und Sparkassen

User-centric and agile implementation

Joint workshops form the basis for shared project understanding and thus for successful cooperation and project 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

After each sprint, “real users” of the product were interviewed: dmcgroup’s user research team recruited test subjects for user interviews based on the known user profiles.

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:

1

Do not restrict users

The housing loan calculator leaves it up to users to decide how and with what level of detail they would like to perform the calculation. In the simplest case, it is sufficient to enter a desired financing amount for a first result.
2

Focus on the task at hand

The calculator is designed so that detailed entries can each be made in a separate view. Users can thus concentrate on the task at hand without distraction and receive exactly the information they need at the moment.
3

Make mistakes impossible

Due to the design of the calculator it is not possible to get errors in the calculation. Thanks to progressive data entry and friendly hints on inputs directly in context, possible hurdles in the process are leveraged.
4

Provide examples and explanation in context

All terms are formulated as self-explanatory as possible. For more complex topics and contexts, users are offered extended information. Each of these pieces of information can subsequently be evaluated in terms of its usefulness, which should serve to sustain the development of high-quality help information.
5

Simply lead to contact and detailed advice

The digital service offering on such a complex topic can and will only be a first point of contact. Therefore, the possibility to contact for a consultation appointment is available centrally and low-threshold from several places in the tool.
6

Outlook: The digital detailed consultation

The home loan calculator represents the bank's first touchpoint with potential customers. This is where the consulting experience starts, and in a further expansion stage it will lead seamlessly into the digital detailed consulting view for the customer advisor.

This bank-internal continuation of the digital advisory experience is currently being implemented by dmcgroup and its partners.