CIBC
Smart Planner

Development of a budgeting tool for all CIBC clients through the CIBC app

OVERVIEW

Project Type

UX Research and Prototype Testing

Role

Designed and conducted interviews and A/B test surveys to strengthen product design and user experience in collaboration with 1 other UX Researcher and 2 UX designers

Skills Development

Interview, qualitative research, A/B testing, surveys, business presentation, moderated interviews, unmoderated interviews, dot voting, secondary research, historical analysis, competitor analysis

Duration

September-October 2022

THE CHALLENGE

CIBC was building Smart Planner, a new banking product, that would be available to all CIBC clients. The application would provide insight into spending, credit card usage and habits, as well as tools to create budgeting and saving goals. My project focused on the budgeting and saving tools. We were to perform three test sprints to improve user flow and user experience within the budgeting tool.

SUMMARY

Throughout interviews, it was clear that one piece of the budgeting tool was causing a lot of strife for users - the Goal Progress Account. There was a button to assign an account that the budget would collect funds from. Many did not understand that the button was required, what it was supposed to do, and, once they did understand it, did not like that all the funds within the chosen account would then be set aside for that goal. We got a lot of push back on changing the verbiage and searching for alternative options. However, we were able to push business to make the change to ensure strong user design and experience.

"I did not know that was required. I don't really know what that means."

Interviewee via UserTesting

Sprint 1

INITIAL INTERVIEWS

Methods: Moderated and unmoderated interviews

Tested: Prototype of the CIBC Smart Planner's Goals and Budget tools

Insights:

Stuck on the Target and Accounts page as they did not know what a "Goal Progress Account" was and how it would work
Appreciated the simplicity of the flow and the way progress is shown
The diversity of goals helped give users a strong understanding of what kind of goals they could and should be making
Many users did not have savings outside of their emergency fund

Sprint 2

IMPROVING TOOL CLARITY & USER FLOW

Methods: A/B testing surveys, unmoderated interviews, dot voting, historical analysis, competitor analysis

Tested:

Adding an action word (e.g., "Select," "Assign," "Choose")
Adding an info icon (i.e., explain what a Goal Progress Account was)

Insights

Adding an action word made the selection of a Goal Progress Account feel required as part of completing the page
The action word "Select" had the most positive responses
Users strongly preferred having the info icon as it helped greatly with clarification of what was being expected of them
There was disappointment that there wasn't a way to segment an account to include multiple goals, rather than CIBC forcing customers to make more accounts (which meant more fees) to assign them to other goals.

Sprint 3

ACCOUNT ALLOCATION & SEGMENTATION

Methods: Moderated interviews, surveys

Tested: Rough mock-ups created in Microsoft Paint

Insights

Users wanted the ability to segment their accounts - ideally, they would be able to assign a percentage of their account to each goal to more holistically view their progress without needing to open multiple chequing and saving accounts
There was a preference for dollar amounts to be shown in progress, rather than percentages, as it gave a more clear view of how far they were in each goal
A default goal was suggested as a way to handle initial deposits to the account, or a catch all bucket for funds to be assigned later

"If I make deposits into my account, how will it know which goal to assign it to? I don't want multiple accounts because of the fees, so there has to be a way to divide my current account by goal.”

Interviewee via UserTesting

CONCLUSION

When we initially flagged the Goal Progress Account as a problem, business said they knew it was an issue. However, they did not have a fix for it that could be completed in time for launch. Our second sprint provided options for quick implementation that would significantly improve the client journey through the tool. When we performed this second sprint, business was very happy with the suggestions and added them. We then performed sprint 3 as a way to prepare for future updates and shared our research with the two teams who were looking into segmentation options.

Sprint 2 and 3 we self-directed, as there was not buy-in from business. This initiative proved extremely fruitful despite business push-back and hesitance around making a change to a vital part of the tool's flow.