INDUSTRY:
FINANCE
CLIENT:
BANK
YEAR:
2025
EXPERIENCE:
UX&UI
A veteran banking institution engaged the team to redesign its banking app, which was perceived as outdated relative to current market standards. Two core objectives drove the project: bringing the app up to modern standards and attracting a new target audience, while retaining the existing customer base.
My role: Lead Designer & Research
The existing app failed to serve two parallel, somewhat conflicting needs: long-standing customers who wanted stability, personal service, and simplicity, versus a newer, younger target audience expecting an advanced, proactive, and efficient digital experience.
The core challenge: how to build a single app that serves two different worldviews without losing either one — while meeting the bank's business goals (brand perception shift, customer satisfaction, increased sales, operational agility).
discovery process.
Rather than jumping straight to solutions, we convened 6 managers with direct involvement in the customer-facing app for a 4-hour Design Thinking workshop:
Mapping the current state — presenting strategic goals and inspiration research from leading financial products in Israel and abroad.
Refining business goals — participants sorted and ranked all possible goals for the app, revealing an interesting gap: while the bank was interested in innovation, it ranked brand perception and customer satisfaction significantly higher than pure technological innovation.
Building personas — using empathy maps, we built two personas: "Reuven" (50, existing customer, seeking warmth and stability) versus "Yaron" (35, new target audience, seeking efficiency and minimal friction) — taking care to define Yaron as a "soft techie" rather than a stereotype.
Mapping the customer journey — breaking down a full calendar month (beginning/middle/end + special events) for both personas, then a group vote to identify shared key touchpoints: balance checks, taking loans, cash-flow concerns, opening deposits, managing multiple accounts, handling irregular expenses.
Translating to design direction — the workshop was translated into strategic recommendations: a simple, personal interface for the legacy audience alongside proactive, advanced tools for the new audience — not as two separate apps, but as experience layers within the same system.
user interviews.
Before designing a single screen, we conducted 10 in-depth interviews (up to 60 minutes each) — 5 with existing bank customers, 5 with competitors' customers — to test the workshop's assumptions against real users.
Key insight: the gap between the two personas was significantly smaller than assumed in the workshop. Reuven and Yaron don't represent two opposing worlds — both wanted an end-to-end solution within the app (information, communication with a representative, executing actions). The real difference wasn't what they needed, but how fast and independently they wanted to get there — Yaron had higher financial literacy and actively sought ways to optimize his finances.
Four core pain points emerged:
Fragmented information — users wanted a single view of checking account activity and credit cards together; credit card data was missing from the app and required switching to the website.
Lack of proactivity — users expected the bank to flag a problem before it happened, not just report on it afterward.
Confusion around savings products — technical terminology (daily/monthly fixed deposits) led most interviewees to prefer calling a banker over using the app.
"Simple" actions requiring a branch visit — increasing credit limits, international transfers, password resets — inconsistent with the expectation of a "digital bank."
testimonial.
A digital bank needs to be ACCESSIBLE. Today, I need to get to my bank just to take care of the basics.
Assaf S.
Interviewer
ux concept.
The Financial Feed. Opening the app feels like scrolling a news feed — but bounded, not infinite. Account status up top, insights and offers in the middle, banking products at the bottom. A structure, not a scroll.
📊 A financial feed, not a maze
Account status, insights, and products — one bounded structure instead of scattered screens
✨ Proactive by default
Insights and warnings surface before a problem happens, not just after
💬 A banker, one tap away
Direct chat access in the standard top-bar spot — no digging required
💳 Built for how people already manage money
Credit cards live in the app now, and checking account exports straight to Excel
creative concept.
Familiar, refreshed. User reviews kept repeating the same complaint — outdated, cluttered, not user-friendly, especially next to competitors. The brief: modernize the feel without losing what existing customers already trust.
🎨 Color, dialed in
Same blues and greens, refined from print-era values into a system built for screens — clearer usage rules, more white space, more minimalism
Aa Typography, kept familiar
Almoni stays — neutral, legible, accessible, and already recognized by users
◯ Shape, kept soft
Rounded corners throughout — signaling warmth and trust instead of sharp, corporate edges
🖼️ Illustration, kept optimistic
Flat style with subtle depth — warm and human, never competing with the content
