Bank of America Online Banking Tool
A cognitive walkthrough and user testing exercise
A cognitive walkthrough and user testing exercise
THE PROBLEM SPACE
Bank of America, like other banks, has an online banking tool in order to help its customers more easily manage their money. Prior to the rise of online banking, people might’ve used the paper transaction register to detail all their account activity: deposits, withdrawals, transfers, bills, and other expenditures. Reconciling the register, however, can be a time-consuming task, requiring one to be preoccupied with it at all times and having to remember to write down every purchase one makes. Online banking sharply decreases a user's memory load by storing all their transactional information in one convenient location, and therefore lets them focus on the tasks that really matter when it comes to managing their finances.
THE USERS
Online banking is a particularly crucial piece of software to investigate for the effectiveness of its interface, as the user base is extremely varied. Users could be old or young -- your grandma still has money, after all, but is fairly averse to complicated technologies, and your 16-year-old sister just opened her first bank account and all these money management concepts are new to her. At the other end, a user could be an experienced investment banker, who has a large portfolio and is well-versed in the financial jargon. Between these extremes is everyone else; people who have a basic understanding of finances and comfort level with technology.
With this in mind, below are the criteria for recruitment purposes:
1. Have at least one open account with Bank of America
2. Have had this same account open for at least one year
3. Have enrolled in online banking with Bank of America, and have used it to some degree (this requirement is flexible)
4. Be proficient in personal money management
5. Have Internet access at home
6. Have one or more years of experience using the Internet
7. Either 18-25 years of age, or over 40 years old
Five users were selected to be in this study based on the above criteria: two between the ages of 18 to 25, and three over 40 years old.
THE PERSONA
Brian is in charge of finances at home. He keeps receipts and has an excel spreadsheet outlining the family budget, so he understands basic financial operations and the concept of transactions. He has an online banking account but doesn’t use it much and relies more on his spreadsheets. He pays his bills by sending checks through the mail, and has direct deposit with his employer so his paychecks are automatically wired to his account. He has both a checking and a savings account.
THE METHOD
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the online banking interface, we performed a cognitive walkthrough, followed by user testing on 5 individuals. Both methods analyzed the following tasks:
1. Check the status of a recent transaction to see if it’s been cleared.
2. Retrieve an account statement in pdf format from August 2012.
3. Set up an account notification that tells you when Check #500 has posted.
2. Retrieve an account statement in pdf format from August 2012.
3. Set up an account notification that tells you when Check #500 has posted.
These three tasks were chosen as representative of typical interactions a user might have on a day-to-day basis.
Due to the sensitive nature of this domain, for the purposes of this exercise we will not investigate how users might set up transfers, investments, or “bill pay”, which allows the user to pay their bills directly from the Bank of America site. Such tasks would be difficult to evaluate without external account information and without the actual transfer of money taking place (which would be the end result expected). Thus, this limits the kinds of tasks the user can be asked to complete.
Other standards such as error prevention and user control and freedom did not come into play as much as they would have had other tasks been included. In the overall scheme of online banking, these metrics would have the absolute highest priority -- any error could have drastic financial consequences for the user. For the purposes of this piece, though, we will hope that Bank of America has rigorously tested these features on their own, and assume that the results of a simple cognitive walkthrough would be entirely uninteresting.
RESULTS
1. REDUNDANCY
In general, users perceived the website as easy to navigate, although the results of user testing suggested otherwise. The users were confused by the redundancy of various menu items and were not sure which option was the "correct" one. For every single task, each user managed to come up with a completely different way to arrive at the end result.
2. UNFAMILIAR JARGON
User testing revealed the importance of consistency, visibility, and adopting clear naming conventions for menu items, particularly when personal funds can be at stake. Many of the problems the users faced had to do with imposing a vocabulary and set of semantics they did not understand.
3. "SCARY" FEATURES
Everyone struggled with setting up alerts because they were previously not aware they could do this, and the site failed to adequately inform them what the purpose of the alerts were. One user even expressed that features like the alerts were “scary” because they didn’t know what they were supposed to accomplish, and they didn’t want to mess with it for fear of altering something in their account.
4. HELP AND DOCUMENTATION
In an attempt to compensate for its liberal use of jargon, the Bank of America online banking site places extensive help and documentation on every screen. The help boxes and pop-up windows provide the user with immediate answers to questions that may arise as they peruse the site, and applying the cognitive walkthrough evaluation method really brought these facets of the interface to light where they might not have otherwise.
5. LACK OF CONSISTENCY
The site employs a fairly minimalist design that allows the user to view a lot of information at once, and menus and options are presented in a clear manner. The main challenge the site has to overcome is further improving its visibility and consistency in such a way that removes confusing and redundant elements. The otherwise strong design is hindered by pages that seem to not have been updated, and by the fact that there are three or more ways to reach the same goal.
