Western Union
App Redesign
Redefining Western Union as a modern company by creating a highly rated App to establish a global digital footprint.
The mobile App I inherited was rated 1 star and was only available in two countries, one of the which was a non-transactional App. My goal was to design an App that would far surpass traditional retail, Web and competitor experiences by providing a simple and delightful mobile App.
I needed to ensure a seamless experience that could leverage a common template that would scale to country specific needs such as languages, payment methods and compliance related requirements.
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MY ROLE
Full redesign of the Western Union App for iOS and Android.Facilitate workshops, lead discovery and brainstorming sessions. Mentor, provide feedback, input, guidance and final UX decisions
DELIVERABLES
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Scalable App redesign
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UI Kit & Style Guide
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Improved flow & design
The Process
UNDERSTAND
Review metrics & analyze trends, review past research, perform competitive analysis and understand the primary goals and objectives.
CONCEIVE
Lead discovery and brainstorming sessions, card sorting, sketching, defining flows, developing user stories and wire-framing.
DESIGN
Produce demos, refine visuals, perform user testing, update and make changes accordingly. Work with engineering to overcome any constraints.
REFINE
Review product to ensure interactions work as intended and to put any last polish on the design before rolling out the finished product to customers.
Understand
Initially I facilitated a workshop where we performed a competitive analysis to identify best practices, what was done well and what could be done better. During the workshop we agreed upon specific functionality and features we would like to include in our App.
The Team
Noah Zachlod
UX Director
Sijie
UX Designer
Anatoliy
Product Owner
Dinesh
Font End Developer
Kim
Content Strategist
Srihari
Engineering Lead
Ron
Project Manager
With a small team of talented and passionate people we were able to create the first App within 3 months. We followed the Agile methodology and broke the project into sprints which we scoped according to features.
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Within the first year the App was released in over a dozen countries and currently is available in over 100 countries and 27 languages for both Android and iOS devices.
UX TEAM
1 UX Designer
1 Content Strategist
CORE CONTRIBUTORS
8 Developers
1 Product Manager
1 Project Manager
Conceive
I led a variety of exercises such as sketching, card sorting and wire-framing. I also had the team rate ideas using a 3 vote system which let everyone feel their voices were heard. Throughout the process I encouraged a free flow of ideas and then facilitated the categorization and focus into making them actionable next steps.
SKETCHING
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Idea generation
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Interaction and flows
CARD SORTING
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Prioritizing the right features
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Understanding user mindset
WIRE-FRAMING
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Quick alignment with team
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Identify missed use-cases
Design
By defining the flow early we were able to ensure we were capturing all the pages needed and quickly identify any gaps in the user experience. This also served as the blueprint for product owners and engineers to scope the product. Click the image below to view the entire flow we defined.
Refine
We performed extensive testing prior to launch to ensure users were provided a clear and simple experience. I leveraged a combination of in-person and virtual testing.
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During testing I identified customer pain points and proposed solutions that were then prioritized and validated in the refine phase through additional testing.
The Results
The results speak for themselves: Increased transaction starts +5%, revenue +73% and Net Promoter Score +43% within the first year. Digital transaction growth has been +25% year over year since launch. The App went from 1 star to 4.5 stars averaged globally and is not available for download in over 100 countries.
Want to see the full case-study?
There are a lot more details in full study including personas that we developed, the Agile request process we used, some visual explorations and more. If you would like to see our more recent and modern App explorations please contact me.