Small business owners face a different set of challenges from large corporations—the UOB SME digital ecosystem comprising the public website, web internet banking and mobile app, was designed to serve their unique needs. Together, the platforms give them an overview of their business performance, share business tips and connect them with networking events, helping them run their business better.
I led the team of 3 designers, 2 researchers and 2 writers working on these platforms where we launched in 9 months, laying the foundations for the SME ecosystem to run.
Client
UOB Business Banking
Project scope
Product Design of Digital Channels (Digital Strategy, UX Research, Product Design, Content Strategy & Creation)
As part of UOB's strategy to engage more small business owners, the SME digital ecosystem needed to do more than just be a platform for banking services—rather, the premise of the ecosystem was to help them run their businesses better. UOB's positioning as a partner was embodied both through an encouraging tone of voice throughout the platforms, as well as a multi-pronged approach across various channels.
The SME Hub was developed as a content repository of business insights and success stories, and a platform for events where business owners could sign up for events to network with others. Through our initial user interviews, we discovered that small business owners frequently leaned on each other as a form of emotional support, and connecting with others was important to them. Whether this happened through physical/virtual events, or by learning about other businesses' success stories, we identified that SMEs wanted to feel more connected, while simultaneously learning from others.
For UOB SME customers, the Business Overview dashboard provides insights on one's business cash flow trends. Through summary cards, business owners and decision makers can get a quick insight on how their business is performing, before diving into further details about in- and outflows for the past months. A quick pullout drawer also offers contextualised recommendations and links users to relevant business tips from the SME Hub.
To take UOB's proposition even further, the UOB BizSmart programme offers a curated suite of digital solutions to help manage business operations, ranging from accounting to digital marketing and HR management.
The UOB SME app's Business Overview dashboard offers integrations with these partner providers, displaying even more comprehensive business insights with the additional data synced across partners. Enriched with accounting data, the Business Overview gains the ability to provide forecasts for cash balances and AR/AP trends—business owners can now plan their sales and business development activities around their forecasted business position.
Deriving the style of custom isometric illustrations from the UOB TMRW consumer banking app, we quickly realised the need to create many more assets to accurately represent business functions that did not exist in the consumer banking world.
We quickly built out a system to cater to the 130+ illustrations we created in 3 months for use across the public website, digital application journeys, the UOB SME app, and the internet banking platform.
This started with identifying common use cases with similar messages across product pages that could share illustrations, giving them an approximate name, and grouping them by product categories. The process was meticulously tracked in a table to identify where each asset was used, if any new ones needed creation, and their progress status.
To build consistency, we identified elements that alluded to specific meanings, eg. wallet for account, dancing coins for loans, and a phone with an awning to represent a digital business. These ensured that the illustrations were not merely decorative, but served as visual aids to help users digest information on content-heavy pages across the website and app.
The comprehensive library of illustrations balanced the seriousness of banking with a sense of vibrancy, and maintained a structured consistency while distinctly branding UOB's digital products across its different channels.
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