Designing Account Linking at Capital One
Overview
I designed the mobile experience to link external payment and transfer accounts to maintain mobile/web parity and to increase account linkage and transfers.
Problem
Though 70% of bank transfers are made via mobile, the ability to link external accounts for transfers was only accessible on the web. We needed a mobile experience to cater to the needs and behaviors of our users.
We received a high call volume from customers who wanted to transfer money immediately after linking their external account. They had trouble understanding that the process has 3 steps:
Link a transfer account
Wait 2 -3 business days
Complete a test deposit (LOTD) to verify the account for transfer
Bird’s eye view of the entire experience. I built android designs as well!
Goals
Design a seamless experience between mobile and web for our customers
Increase funding rates from 82% to 90% which equates to $50 million in present value/year
Reduce high call volume due to customers attempting to transfer money before verifying their linked account
Educate our bank customers about the differences between linking payment and transfer accounts
Payments can be made immediately after linking
Transfers can not be made immediately after linking
Key Metrics
Task completion
Call volume reduction
Increased revenue
My Role:
Lead UI / UX Designer
The Team:
Me
My Product Partner
My Engineering Team
Money Movement Designers
Our Customers:
Bank and Card customers who use our mobile banking application to pay credit card bills and transfer money from external bank accounts.
Initial Research
The process began by gathering information from the previous designer, PM, and engineering team of the web experience. I found early stages of designs which were translated from web to mobile.
Stakeholder Meeting
I brought together key stakeholders to reevaluate the early design work. Asking questions such as, did we need to reinvent the wheel? Were there great pieces of this design to leverage? Is this experience pulling appropriate design components? How does this experience fit into the larger experience?
We spent an hour populating the designs with questions and next steps for each of us. These next steps were based off the problems and opportunities we explored:
Problems
❌ Outdated design components raised accessibility concerns
❌ Designed with one customer in mind leading the experience to be irrelevant at times
❌ Does not allude to the important fact that the transfers experience has a longer confirmation process (LOTD)
❌ Does not highlight the differences between a payment and transfer
Opportunities
💡 Contribute new design components to design system and engineering repository
💡 Build a different experience for each customer that is populated intelligently
💡 Design a next steps screen educating customers of the linking process.
💡 Partner with the Money Movement team who designed the LOTD experience to understand an appropriate transition experience.
Competitive Audit
Before I began solutioning, I wanted to see how other existing applications tackle the same problems on mobile. I researched platforms that had a simple experience, clear CTAs, and concise instruction to aid customers in understanding an otherwise complex process.
Venmo, PayPal, and Apple Pay stood out to me. I learned:
Context is key, especially with complicated financial processes. This can be done with clear language, story telling, photography.
Reduced cognitive overload is a must. Limiting design real estate and avoiding long forms on one screen will reduce drop off.
Taking advantage of bottom sheets is an innovative way of avoiding a large number of screens and get customers through the process more quickly
User Experience Map
Next, I built a user experience map in order to visualize the entire end-to-end journey that our customers would go through to add external accounts. In order to do this, I had to take a deep look into our settings information architecture. It became apparent that this feature would sit under our Account & Feature settings tab.
What I learned:
Touch points our customer would interact with
Success/fail states
First time experiences for our 3 customers types
Where to place a next steps screen for LOTD confirmation
Building a Solution
The first important thing I took into consideration was designing for our three customer types. I developed specific screens for each to help them see relevant information and avoid confusion.
Screens for each customer:
Bank Only: would see information related to only bank transfers
Card Only: would see information related to only payments
Bank and Card: would see information related to both payments and bank transfers
Existing customers are invited into the experience with a table clearly informing which external accounts are available and for what capabilities.
I pulled inspiration from the competitive audit and found ways to introduce a new bottom sheet component. This component:
accounts for accessibility constraints
reduces design real estate,
alleviates cognitive overload for our customers
In partnership with the Money Movement team, we designed a next step screen. We wanted to make it clear that:
external accounts for payments are available right away
external accounts for transfer:
are available after 2 - 3 days
require test deposits for confirmation
Finally I utilized new modals and inline message components to clearly indicate both user and system errors.
User Testing
Alongside the Money Movement team, we conducted user testing on both the external account linkage and LOTD experience.
Research Methodology:
2 clickable prototypes
Task 1: Add an external account for transfers
Task 2: Check app several days later and verify test deposits (LOTD)
13 participants
Remote moderated usability test
Key Findings:
✅ When users want to add an external account, they find how to do so and complete the process with ease
⚠️ Users are often unclear on next steps minutes after initiating step 2 in adding transfers (LODT)
The common misconception is that a user can transfer money immediately and that no further action is needed.
Recommendations
Based on the user testing, it was clear that the next steps screen I had designed needed further attention. This was nearing the end of my time with this project. I passed my recommendations to another designer who built the UI.
Users were unaware that the next steps were sequential, so recommended a solution with numerical icons over pictorial ones.
Users glossed over the screen retaining little to no information, so I recommended a solution that would clearly grab the user’s attention and allow them to acknowledge the critical information before them.
Users were unaware which step in the process they were currently in and that transfers are not available immediately. I recommended a solution with a progress indicator and success icons to indicate completion and stress the waiting period.
Closing Thoughts
We are continuing to test its success through a/b testing, kill metrics, and call volume statistics.