İşCep
Banking
Helping people find their way around an app with more than 300 things to do.
İşCep is the mobile app of Türkiye's largest private bank. It had grown to more than 300 transaction types, and finding any one of them had become the hard part.
As a Senior Designer at Commencis, I worked on the post-login redesign with our research team and the bank, from the first workshop to the final screens.
- 300+transaction types
- RoleSenior Designer at Commencis
- ClientTürkiye İş Bankası
- PlatformiOS and Android app
The problem
People got lost, and the app made it hard to get home.
We started by testing the app as it was. In moderated sessions with 20 people, only 35% could make sense of the charts on the home screen, and on that screen alone people said they felt lost 32 times. Tree tests with 82 people showed the same trouble in the structure underneath.
35%could make sense of the charts on the home screen
The old home screen, before
“It shows what percentage is demand and what's time deposit, but that means nothing to me.”
The menu was the main trap. Tap the wrong item and you had to step back one level at a time to get home.
Shaping the experience
Principles first, screens later.
Before drawing screens, we ran 13 design workshops with the bank's working group. Together we agreed on seven experience principles:
- Match people's mental models
- Weigh how often each task is used
- Complete the experience cycle
- Keep status visible
- Personalise the experience
- Design for flexibility
- Support the customer
Those principles became the skeleton for a new information architecture, then wireframes, then an interactive prototype we could put in front of customers.
The visual workshop
We asked the bank to break up with its own app.
While the structure took shape, I co-led a visual design workshop with the bank's team. We had benchmarked 11 apps beforehand, from local banks to Revolut and N26, and spent the session pulling them apart: what works, what hurts, what could grow.
Then we turned to İşCep and asked everyone to write it a love note or a break-up note. The break-up notes won.
Across the boards, the same wishes kept coming up: no charts on the dashboard, quicker access to everyday tasks, and a menu you can find your way back out of.
Design process
From structure to screens.
We rebuilt the information architecture first, then wireframed the menu, accounts and dashboard, and turned them into an interactive prototype before any visual polish. Visual design ran alongside, fed by the workshop.
Decisions
Four changes that did most of the work.
Decision 01
Tabs for doing, not browsing.
The old tab bar grouped information, and the full menu hid in a drawer. We rebuilt the tabs around actions (Home, Transfer, Payments, Spending) and put the full menu in a button at the centre. It opens over the screen and closes with one tap, so there is nothing to step back through. One participant: “Before, we went back one screen at a time.”
Decision 01 · Tabs for doing, not browsing
Decision 02
Shortcuts that know you.
İşCep already had shortcuts. Now they arrive sorted by how often you use them, and you can still edit them.
Decision 03
Numbers people can read.
We moved the asset and debt charts one level in and turned the home screen into product cards: your account, your card, and assets and debts side by side.
“I never understood the chart anyway. Good that you took it out.”
Decision 04
Finish what you start.
A completed transaction used to end on “Your transaction is complete” and nothing else. Now a transfer ends with your new balance and a receipt to share, and an approved loan tells you where to find it next.
Testing
Same people, same tasks, very different results.
We put the prototype in front of nine people, eight of whom had tested the old app. Unaided success on the six core tasks rose from 70% to 96%, and the System Usability Scale score went from 72.8 to 88.6. The test found problems again, fewer of them, and none critical.
Unaided task success, six core tasks
System Usability Scale (SUS)
Old app New design
- FX account7089
- Instant loan100100
- EFT80100
- Time deposit90100
- Overdraft application4089
- Instalment cash advance40100
What didn't land
Not everything worked first time.
78% → 67%
Finding bill payment
Finding bill payment was the one task that got worse, from 78% to 67%. Some people still went looking for payments in the menu before noticing the new tabs, and the edit button for shortcuts was too quiet to spot.
Iterations
What the test changed.
Some people looked for their spending under the Transactions tab, so it became Spending.
The shortcut edit button blended into the shortcuts, so it moved up next to the section title as its own link.
Lessons
What I took away.
Taking things away did more than adding them: removing the charts helped people understand their money.
And names are navigation: one tab label changed where people looked for their spending.
The final screens
One app on both sides of the login.
The visual language grew out of the design library we had built for the earlier pre-login redesign, so logging in no longer feels like moving into a different app. I took the design through to the final screens: home, cards, payments, onboarding and navigation.
Afterwards
İşCep went on to win Best Mobile Application at the Sardis Awards, ranked first for Most Accessible Mobile Application, and took first place in Mobile Banking and Finance at the Altın Örümcek awards.
