Backbase Product design
SME Banking App
Everyday business banking, built around the way people think.
- Role
- UX Lead
- Product
- White-label mobile banking
- Contribution
- Research, strategy, IA and UI
- Collaboration
- Research, UX and product teams
The overview
Small-business owners need a clear view of their finances and quick access to everyday tasks. Backbase’s white-label app needed navigation grounded in real user behaviour, with room for each bank’s brand.
The goal
Make key banking tasks easier to find while keeping the product flexible for different clients.
My contribution
I led UX strategy, research planning and workshops, and contributed to the information architecture, wireframes, prototypes and UI.
Explore the work
Find the user’s mental model.
Working with the research team, we ran 12 remote card-sorting sessions with business users in the USA, South Africa and the UK. Participants grouped roughly 40 features, helping us understand their priorities and where they expected to find things.
Give the app a clearer structure.
The research informed five main areas: Dashboard, Money In & Out, Quick Actions, Accounts & Cards, and More. Another UX designer and I translated the structure into wireframes and a prototype for testing.
Test the routes, then refine them.
Twelve usability tests across nine tasks achieved approximately 70% success and surfaced three findability issues. A later tree test across 22 sessions and eight tasks achieved approximately 80% success, with three smaller issues still to address.
The tests used different tasks and participant groups, so the success rates are separate findings rather than a before-and-after measure.
Explore the work
One experience. Different banking brands.
The UI balanced a consistent experience with white-label customisation. I identified improvements to the design tokens that could support stronger dark-mode behaviour while preserving each bank’s branding.
Where it landed.
The work established a research-led navigation direction and a more adaptable mobile experience. The team continued delivering the roadmap the Product Owner and I had prioritised after I left Backbase.
