A few designs are hidden from the public version of this site, as they include unreleased concepts. If you want complete access feel free to drop me an e-mail :)
A lot has changed in the banking world and new players storm the market with top-notch usability as their selling point. To stay ahead of the game DKB founded their daughter firm COFA to rebuild their banking systems from scratch.
DKB customers have diverse product portfolios including checking and savings accounts, credit cards, loans, and brokerage accounts.
To cater to this variety, I devised a dynamic homepage that adjusts the level of information displayed based on the number of products the user possesses. Users with a single account can view their transactions instantly, while users with multiple accounts will see a list of their accounts first.
Given that transferring funds is the second most frequently used feature in the app, I made sure to prominently display the transfer button on every variation of the homepage, regardless of the number of accounts a user has.
We had significant opportunities to enhance the broker, and now users have instant access to an interactive visualization of their investment's development.
As a major digital bank, DKB generates numerous web pages, necessitating a reliable system to ensure consistency across all future sites. Stella the new design system addresses these needs, providing components for iOS, Android, and React.
DKB has 5 internal design teams dedicated to digital products, in addition to external agencies creating websites for the bank, which makes it easy for things to get a bit chaotic. To prevent this from happening, we extensively documented our guidelines and sought feedback from designers using it.
To ensure we selected the appropriate colors for our products, I devised a systematic approach using two color tables: a base color table containing all available colors for designers to choose from, and a semantic color table linking color values to names that reflect their intended use.
The initial table outlines all available colors for designers to select from, with each hue offered in varying levels of darkness and transparency. This approach allows for simple color adjustments, such as changing an element's color from red to green, while maintaining the same contrast ratio.
This table serves as a link between development and design. Here, we assign base colors to specific use cases within our products and provide them with descriptive names that can be easily understood by both designers and developers.
This ensures consistency, makes later changes easier and eliminates the need to hardcode colors for each of our software languages.
I developed an illustration library that any designer can contribute to. Similar to our design system, the illustrations are constructed using reusable components, enabling new designers to create new illustrations while maintaining the overall style.
Design is no longer a solitary pursuit of a lone genius in a dark basement. It's a team sport! We get the best results when we bring together the brightest minds and collaborate from the get-go. That's why I organized and facilitated design workshops and sprints, depending on the feature's impact. I brought in everyone with valuable knowledge and different perspectives, from researchers and product owners to developers and financial specialists. Together, we come up with two or three basic prototypes that we put to the test with our users. We take their feedback, iterate, and refine until we've got a design that serves as a solid foundation for the next steps.
When we created the concepts, we noted down our wild assumptions and highlight the areas where we're unsure. Then we put our prototypes to the test with our users to see if our hunches were correct or if we've missed anything crucial. We do this over and over until we're absolutely positive that our solutions are top-notch and truly meet our users' needs. By doing so, we uncovered potential pitfalls and gained insights that helped us refine the designs.
As this project involved a lot of people, clear communication was key. I created a variety of artifacts to convey research findings and design concepts.
Andi is an excellent designer, who is easy to work with and cares a lot about the end result. He is always open to developer feedback which makes him great to work with and makes my job easier. I especially enjoyed the collaboration on the SEPA transfer feature and the result is a very well-designed part of the app.
In close cooperation with our user research team, he analyzed all new features in detail and achieved the best possible result for our customers. During the development he was always approachable for our developers and could therefore help to implement our new features quickly. Personally, I enjoyed working with him and I am convinced that Andi will continue to shape digital products in his future positions.
Andi's ability to maintain consistency and coherency in design language across banking products is also commendable. He ensured that the user experience is seamless across multiple touch-points, which helped to build trust and loyalty among our customers.
Alexander Nehls • Julian Dorn • Thies Grüning
Fabian Engelbach • Benjamin Salanki • Lissy Bonness
Elisa Litty • Anita Popovic
