KYC Redesign

KYC stands for "Know Your Customer." Banks mandate that customers verify their identity, suitability, and the associated risks of maintaining a business relationship. Citibank, for instance, requires customers to annually update their accounts with details such as their address, employment information, citizenship status, and income.

The Problem

Customers often ignore the annual follow-up, with only 48% submitting the required information. Consequently, banks are compelled to close an individual’s account if they cannot verify their details.

Why do less than half of Citi customers complete KYC?
When we asked the business owners, we came to a dead end. Doing my research, I found that customers are turned off by the many steps, repetitive questions, and not knowing how long the process will take

• The product owners tasked us to create a mobile experience for the KYC simple flow which would lead to increased submissions. Responsive Web was redesigned previously.

• Do not stray too far from the current web design.

• Achieve timely retrieval of KYC information from customers to prevent the closure of their accounts.

• The business owners want users to see different sections they need to complete without scrolling.

• The challenge for mobile is creating a design with minimal scrolling that can accommodate many questions and sections.

The progress bar will fill up and checkmarks/awards pop up as you complete each section for a gamification effect.

Competitive Analysis

Blue Sky Ideation

Before I was put on to this project, the team had already redesigned the responsive web or CBOL flow, therefore we did not do new IA, user flows, and sitemaps. The text, questions, and sections (residential address, mailing address, employment, income, and citizenship) had already been created. Moreover, since I joined the team late, we began working on competitive analysis. I looked for examples of companies that used creative methods to minimize scrolling and had forms that needed to be completed with multiple sections.

I was told to design and ideate with the sky as the limit so I explored different layouts, colors, and illustrations. I normally start with sketches and wireframes but we had a tight deadline and wanted to show the journey owners an array of designs. Therefore, I started ideation in high fidelity. Below are some designs I came up with that promoted minimal scrolling and accommodated many sections.

Tab Design

This design featured tabs that begins from left to right, where you would fill out one tab at a time. This prevents scrolling and allows the customer to focus on one section at a time.

Rewards Motivated

Design Selection & Prototype

The Product Owners chose one design from both my coworker and myself. Out of my designs, the journey owners were most interested in exploring the accordion design that would help limit the amount of scrolling. I adjusted the colors to follow Citi branding. We also got some pushback from the developers requesting to limit the number of illustrations due to size and load time considerations. The journey owners chose a tab design from my coworker, Crystal. The plan was to test both designs and see which one performed better.

Qualitative Research

Over half said they liked Design A (top) because it felt better, fancier, and more friendly.

User Testing

All users easily understood the flow and had no problem navigating through the experience.

83%

5/6 of users were confused how often they would receive this questionnaire even when they saw the tooltip saying the questionnaire was annual. This suggests that the users skimmed instead of reading.

Setting
We tested the designs A and B above and asked the same questions. We wanted to see which design would perform better with the questions we asked. First, we asked them to log into their account and complete their usual tasks in order to see their reaction when prompted to complete the questionnaire.

Some of the questions we asked were:
What do you usually open your Citi mobile to do?
Where might you go if you are busy and can’t complete the questionnaire at this time?
Where would you find more information about the questionnaire?
Have you seen this type of questionnaire before?

Vertical expand and collapse menu using a curved progress bar that resembles Citi’s logo. Sections expand and collapse in order from top to bottom. When you fill out one section, it will collapse and the next section will expand open. You can also go back to edit previous sections.

Chatbot Design

This one relies on future technology for Citibank but the idea was you could talk to a VR assistant/bot, who would ask you account update questions and you could either type or use voice technology to answer by voice. This one was a little far-fetched but the journey owners loved the idea to explore in the future.

When asked where they would go if they didn’t have time to complete the questionnaire, 2/6 users said the close button was not very apparent and they were looking for a button that said “skip” instead.

2/6 users said they thought design B (bottom) had a stricter feel so they would more likely fill out the form.

Design Revisions

COPY CHANGES

• We made the text more concise based on user testing, which revealed that people tend to skim.

• Removed the second line of text under "Before You Continue..." since the information was already included in the tooltip pop-up

• The tooltip was shortened by removing the section about recording user information and emphasizing the words "annually" and the phone number in bold to make the text easier to skim.

• The header for the residential address was rephrased to clarify why verification is necessary, as some users were confused about why they needed to confirm the information we already had.

• The top navigation header was changed from "Update Profile" to "Attention Required" because users felt the latter conveyed a greater sense of urgency and prompted immediate action.

• "Close" was changed to "Skip" because testers indicated they were searching for a skip button when asked where they would go if they couldn't complete the questionnaire.

UI CHANGES

• The background was darkened to align better with Citi branding and create a more mature atmosphere. Although testers found the original design more fun and pleasant, it made them less likely to take the questionnaire seriously.

• The progress bar was removed because the Journey Owners noted that all sections were visible without scrolling and that creating the bar would take considerable time.

• The CTA buttons were made smaller because testers were clicking them without reading the content.

• The success screen button was removed and we decided to make the screen a timed one. From a user standpoint, it’s best to have fewer clicks or button presses for the user.

• The review and submit screen was revised to show all the information that the user reviewed so they could go back and edit without having to expand the sections in order to review them.

• The illustration screen was taken away to promote a stricter feel.