AIB online banking: a bit more lovable?
– posted May 14th, 2009 by Rosarie O'Regan Comments (7)
Last year Belen and Lar produced wireframes for what they thought could be a better online banking experience. They focused on the top 3 user goals:
- check balances
- transfer funds
- pay bills
Perhaps AIB was listening. A few weeks ago they launched their new (and improved?) online banking application. At first glance it looks great, definitely an improvement in the visual design compared to the old version.
But is it more usable? I did a quick review of each new AIB online banking feature to find out if it is indeed lovable banking.
Quick Pay
This feature is a great new addition. A user’s top tasks, like paying a bill or transferring money, are brought to the fore.
However I have 3 issues with this feature.
1. The contents of the Payment type drop down menu. I think I know what “Pay a Beneficiary” means but I’m not 100% sure. I don’t want to start doubting myself while I’m dealing with my money.
2. The amount text boxes: why is the cents text box under the Euro box? I didn’t see the decimal at first and this threw me off a bit. Also, in the previous version you had to enter all amount in cents and now you can enter the amount in euro and cents, (which is a welcomed change). But this change needs to be clear, otherwise you might end up paying €1,500 instead of €15. Putting the cents text boxes under the euro box doesn’t clarify.
3. When you click “confirm” to finish your quick pay transaction, there is no final confirmation/review screen. The old AIB online banking app provided a confirmation screen telling you both the amount you just paid and to which account the payment or transfer was going. Plus you had to confirm with digits from your PAC code.
Many users could accidentally transfer €1,000 instead of €100 quite easily without this final check. A final review screen would add an extra step to the quick pay feature, but that extra step is essential. It could help prevent a lot of errors and inward calls to AIB to stop the transaction.
Quick apply
Quick apply allows users to apply for products like car insurance, credit cards and loans. The application process for each product is very user friendly and guides the user step by step. This feature gets an A+.
Transfer and Payments
I really like the task navigation they have implemented for the transfer and payments and manage my account pages.
It makes exactly what you want to do with your money very clear. Another win for AIB.
Search Transactions
With the new (and improved?) AIB online, users can now search their transactions. You can search for cheques and any other transaction from the last 6 months. Perhaps there’s a technical reason why cheques and transactions are separate searches, but I think a single keyword search box would suffice.
E-Statements
E-Statements is a very handy feature and helps us all do our bit for the environment. However the statements are in PDF, which is may not be accessible to people using screen readers, especially older versions.
Progress Bars
The progress bar displays every time you fill out a form. It’s pretty subtle, however. If they’re going through the trouble of providing a progress bar, they may as well make it obvious.
And the winner is . . .
It is obvious AIB has taken a user-centred approach for this redesign, and they have done a pretty good job. This online banking is lovable(ish). It’s not perfect and tweaks are needed but they are definitely moving in the right direction.
What do you think?
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Categories Design, Site reviews, Technology, Usability
7 comments so far
1. » AIB online banking: a bit more lovable? - iQ Blog | Online Banking on May 14th, 2009 - 12:59
[...] The old AIB online banking app provided a confirmation screen telling you both the amount you just paid and to which account the payment or transfer was going. Plus you had to confirm with digits from your PAC code. … Go here to read the rest: » AIB online banking: a bit more lovable? - iQ Blog [...]
2. Derek Organ on May 14th, 2009 - 20:38
I quite like it. You can tell they put a lot of thought into the interface this time around.
I have one small gripe so far.
On the start page when you login you can see recent transactions from all your accounts in short statements which look great.
When I click on the statements link to show more of each statement the layout of the statement (table data)is different. For me this table is way too spaced out vertically. They should keep the same style as on the start page.
3. Dave Jeffery on May 15th, 2009 - 11:26
I’m a big fan of the new AIB online banking site too.
Quickpay
2. The euro and cents inputs are on the same line in my browser (Safari 4 beta), it must be either browser specific or else they have now fixed it.
3. If you use the Transfers & Payments option instead of Quick Pay then you are asked to confirm before payment is made. I guess they wanted Quick Pay payment to be ‘quick’, I agree this is a bit scary when you’re dealing with real money.
Also, it’s worth mentioning that you are asked for your PAC code on the Quick Pay screen (you can see it on your first screenshot), but they only ask for it once per session, a small but nifty feature in my opinion.
Derek: It’s not difficult to read the overview table when there are only 10 items but if you’re looking through a statement with lots of item,s the extra spacing and zebra background colours make it much easier to read.
4. Derek Organ on May 15th, 2009 - 11:50
@Dave I see why they would do that but I think its too much. I still think with a few pixels less padding on each row it would be very readable.
If you they do that then you can see more of your statement in one screen view.
5. Lar Veale on May 18th, 2009 - 16:46
There is another approach they could take with the transfer - just do it and give their customer the option to Undo it.
As an AIB customer and one of the wireframe creators I’m pretty happy with it.
6. Dave Jeffery on May 18th, 2009 - 20:10
@Lar Transaction-wise how would that work?
Would the transfer actually go ahead and credit the recipients account and then when the user clicked undo would the money be debited back out of the account?
The only other way of implementing undo would be to delay the transfer for a period of time after the recipient has pressed send and within that window of time they can press undo and the transaction would not go ahead.
Both of these options are flawed.
The first one has some serious security implications, also I don’t think it would be even possible when money transferring to different banks.
The second option is counter-intuitive and slows down the process. If I am using quick pay then I expect the transfer start straight away.
7. Lar Veale on May 19th, 2009 - 11:13
Hi Dave,
I’d agree the Undo function is not without its tough technical challenges. Like you, I’d rule out the first option.
If I was to implement the undo - I don’t think the second option slows down anything - I’d delay the transaction no more than a couple of seconds - as long as it takes to read the confirmed transfer message (with the caveat that it can only be undone in that space of time).
Just my two cents (or two euro thankfully since they’ve changed that field).