Orange Bank Africa
A successful financial banking mobile app in a short span of time
Context
More than 20 years ago, Orange Telecommunications made the strategic choice to be present in Africa and the Middle East. With Orange Money in Africa from 2008, the Orange Group demonstrated its expertise in mobile financial services in more than 18 countries. In 2020, Orange launched a new activity on the continent: banking. Orange Bank Africa was born from a partnership between Orange and the NSIA bancassurance group, with its head office based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
Challenges
To design an MVP version for the very first launch of the Orange Bank Africa mobile app in Côte d’Ivoire
To design the Android and iOS mobile apps and be ready for launch within 6 months
To design the following key journeys and features: onboarding, home, open accounts, request credit
To incorporate all the product requirements identified as market needs by the market research team
The main market needs identified: some people in African countries don’t have access to proper banking facilities; and some people don’t have any proper and safe way to manage or request funds
Discovery
My role
Benchmarked several direct and indirect competitor apps to understand how the same or similar journeys and features are handled to make use of user familiarity
Analysed personas to gain a richer understanding of who we’re designing for
Quickly prepared initial wireframes for the project team to utilise these for testing through user focus groups
Deduced insights from the test reports of the user focus groups
Collaborative benchmarking with the stakeholders
Personas shared by the stakeholders
Persona analysis
Initial wireframes delivered for early testing through user focus groups organised by the Marketing reps
Transform
My role
Designed the navigational structure and information architecture
Designed the user flows for all the journeys
Designed all the wireframes to have the product design concept ready for gathering feedback from the stakeholders
Managed multiple iterations of wireframes to update the design concept based on the feedback gathered
Created a click-through prototype containing all the key wireframes
Proposed a feasible design concept for the MVP version
User flows drawn
The entire product was conceptualised through wireframes
Developed wireframes
Design explorations for the splash screen transitioning to the welcome screen
Make
My role
Designed the UI for the Android and iOS mobile app screens
Completed the design handoff for the Android and iOS mobile app screens
Created a click-through prototype containing all the key finalised screens
Reviewed and tested the implementation shared by the developers and reported design feedback to them
Final UI
Requested design specifications manually produced to help the developers execute some parts of the implementation more accurately
Demo: splash screen and transition
Demo: sign up
Additional roles
Presented the design progress to the stakeholders weekly
Pitched design ideas to the stakeholders
Managed the planning of our design activities
Reported our design planning to the stakeholders weekly
Redesigned the responsive website for Orange Bank Africa
Designed the app store screenshots for the Google Play Store and App Store
Responsive website redesign
New design proposal
App store screenshots designed
Design planning
Impact / achievements
The Android and iOS mobile apps were ready on time for launch
The business’s SWOT analysis of the product reported that the design of the app is one of the product’s key strengths.
Orange Bank Africa, an honouree in Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards 2021 in the Finance category for one of ‘The best-designed finance projects of 2021’ (https://www.fastcompany.com/90667104/finance-innovation-by-design-2021)
An impactful launch of Orange Bank Africa, an honouree in Fast Company’s ‘World Changing Ideas Awards 2021’ (https://www.fastcompany.com/90617633/world-changing-ideas-awards-2021-developing-world-technology-finalists-and-honorable-mentions)
Business performance analysis conducted by the stakeholders