Problem Space

Immigration plays an essential role in population dynamics world-wide. How it affects a particular country, however, is closely related to each country’s immigration tradition. Immigration, especially of working-age immigrants, can contribute significantly to population growth in destination countries, —like the United States, Australia and New Zealand—is traditionally a country of immigrants.

The government established 300,000 immigrants per year as the ‘new normal’ since 2015 and Canada's population growth over the previous 10 years came from immigration and is projected to grow up to 72% by 2036. makes the backbone of every economy and attracting these newcomers is big business and all five major banks TD, RBC, BMO, Scotia, CIBC) have packages for newcomers but none dedicate a Microsite specifically catered in educating their new clients.

Opening a bank account in Canada can be difficult if you’re not yet a resident there. Moving is daunting and let alone thinking about having your finances all straightened out. Banking from country to country can be different and one might find this to be challenging to get a good understanding of options and regulations.

Client retention and satisfaction is key for the banking sector to be profitable and newcomers play a role crucial in contributing to profitable outcomes in the banking industry.

The Request

ThinkBank’, a substitute brand given to us by the BMO Design team.

BMO came to BrainStation and gave us a challenge to deliver a Microsite directly catered towards newcomers moving to Canada. A few goals that needed to be meet

Business goal: Drive increased online sales of the ThinkBank (BMO) - Checking account and the ThinkBank Mastercard.

1. Transferring funds from previous country to Canada and Building their Credit.

2. Help users make appointments with financials planners once they arrive in Canada.

3. Promoting cross-sales for various banking products such as Mortgages etc.

Brand Guidelines

We were provided with a set of personas to choose from as well as the branding guidelines (logo, font, icons, colour palette, subject illustrations).

Understanding the Persona

Design Sprint

Day 1

With a small team and a clear schedule for the week, we rapidly started the process to form a problem and test a solution.

We started with a problem framing session to start and with a well-defined problem we created a map of the problem. However, there was plenty of uncertainty around what the solution might be or the best approach. We structured the morning discussions leading to the Sprint Goal into an activity called the Stand up! where the team shared their points of view on the problem at hand.

However, by far, one of the most important additions we have made was building empathy with the user and embedding pre-sprint research insights during the mapping session.

Lastly, we also made HMW a standalone activity. By dotted voting and presented it to the BMO Design team. We all did dot voting for what we that was the best HMW. However, the final vote and the vote that carried the most value belonged to the BMO team.

Day 2

We used tuesday morning, until lunch, approx. 2 hours for the Solution Sketch. After lunch, we spend about 1.5 hours to review the solutions — discussed them — Speed Critiqued and decided which we prototype . The rest of Tuesday afternoon, a solid 1.5 hours, was dedicated to storyboarding and presented our Sketches to the BMO team.

We showcased our wireframes to the BMO design team and they selected one.

We went with a Web Solution as after talking to a lot newcomers we gathered the insight that when it comes to Banking, everyone searches for information on the Web rather than mobile.

We figured Most of the critical decision making in the Sprint is conducted during these 2 days"

Day 3

Starting Day 3, we reviewed and refined our journey mao while at the same time I assigned roles and planning prototyping. We first started by drawing a rough sketch on the whiteboard.

We then went ahead and created a digital Journey map to keep us on the right path.

We felt we bonded and besides that we developed a shared sense of ownership which will helped carry over the results.

Day 4

Moment of truth. Thursday was all about user testing, asking the most effective questions. We Made sure that after each interview, that we took the time to review and make sense of the feedback, and then at the end of the day plans next steps.

We established a few questions to carry out our user testing

How do you feel about the microsite?
What do you think the microsite is about and what is it trying to convey? Did you feel a connection?
If yes, can you tell me more about it?
If no, what made you feel more detached? 
Do you think the choices and representations are tied into the story of Clark and Kylin? If yes, why? If no, can you please elaborate?
If you can make any improvement to the current site, what would it be?

Below are three criterias where we received major feedback, we spent the rest of evening refining our prototype

Day 5

This marked the end of the design sprint. We finally had a chance to present in front of the BMO team on what we were working all week. Our presentations was very well received and was praised for what we accomplished in 4 full days. From the get go after gathering all our insights we set out to build a microsite that was friendly and made newcomers feel secure in their decision of choosing BMO.

Our solution is called Moving together focussed on these 4 pillars

We delivered a solution that encompassed business needs and requirements and drove the value proposition that focuses on building a lasting relationship with the bank which in turn delivers a trustworthy experience to all the newcomers using it.

Next Steps

Challenge: Our biggest challenge going into the challenge was of time constraint. However, we truly created everything together and reached a conclusion before venturing on to the next steps in our process. From our original affinity map and journey map where we each created “I” statements we synthesized the data to coaching each other on moving on together aligned towards a solution. We were able to come together as a team and make decisions as one but also challenge ideas if needed. I would have loved to be able to test with more initial ideas and wireframes without the addition of colour and details.

Further Iterations: We would like to make further iteration of the core value that makes users feel at home by connecting the user to prior clients with a success story, and a bit more story telling by having an animated roadmap and a chat bot that helps users connect with a consultant online.

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