Context overview
In 2023, I undertook a research project for a large UK bank to inform changes to their banking experience to improve support for impaired individuals. Liaising with the bank's internal accessibility team stakeholders, we defined the research objectives, the sample population and the desired outcomes.
Research Objective
The main objective was to surface areas of difficulty, frustration, and exclusion within the impaired individual’s banking experience.
Sample population
30 individuals with a range of impairments from across the bank’s demographics.Broad impairment categories:
- Restricted mobility (arthritis, wheelchair users),
- Vision impairments (blind, restricted vision, color-blindness),
- Hearing impairments (deaf, hearing loss, cochlear implant users),
- Cognitive impairments & Neurodiversity (autism, difficulty processing information, OCD)
- Other sensitivities:some text
- Mental illness (Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar),
- Gambling addiction,
- Financial abuse survivors,
- Caring for a seriously ill dependent.
Desired outcomes
A comprehensive report that can be referenced internally for areas of focus. A deeper understanding of where the bank is falling short in supporting those with impairments Validation of the information architecture of existing support and accessibility options and insight suggestions for further refinement exercises. A set of co-designed improvements and recommendations from impaired users that can guide internal thinking and product-services roadmaps for the future.
Method
Sessions were conducted both remotely and in-person to accommodate participants as much as possible. To help triangulate insights that may be obscure and difficult to surface, we utilized a mixed-methods approach:
- In-depth user interviews (with a BSL interpreter as needed) to understand the participants’ lived experiences and to surface problem areas.
- A card sorting exercise using Optimal Sort to refine the information architecture of the existing accessibility and support groupings.
- Co-design session where I collaborated with the individuals to create a set of speculative service blueprints that would implement changes to aid them in their interaction with their bank across all channels.
Outcome
I completed 31 sessions with individuals with a range of impairments (restricted mobility, vision impairments, hearing impairments, cognitive impairments, mental illnesses, and other sensitivities such as gambling addiction, financial abuse survivors, caring for the seriously ill). Each session was brought into Miro for analysis, finding trends and insights from the users. It was paramount to the research team to ensure that the participants’ voices were maintained in the final artifacts, and so we made heavy use of quotations to illustrate and reinforce the necessity of specific recommendations. My research partner and I translated these insights into a research report and a set of recommendations for changes and accommodations that I and my team presented to a wide range of stakeholders at the bank. To further the impact of the findings, I collected a set of video highlights from the project into a short summary video - surfacing the people at the heart of the objective. The bank stakeholders were extremely pleased with the report and distributed it internally to inform future improvements to their product-service offering.
Personal retrospective
This fulfilling piece of work was a humbling experience. Due to the nature of some of the impairments that participants were living with, research sessions were sometimes very difficult due to the nature of abuse or unpleasant situations that the individuals had found themselves in. The immense sense of worth I felt in not only being there to hear them but to include them in enabling positive change through co-design for those that most often feel excluded has been a highlight of my career so far.
This is a project I remember fondly and I often revisit it when I need reminding of why I started in this discipline.