Bringing in Equity and Inclusion Through UX

How many times have you seen your parents and grandparents shy away from using a digital banking app?

How many memes have we enjoyed mocking their predicament??

But we often tend to overlook the underlying question surrounding it all.?

Is the UX of digital banking apps inclusive enough??

Or this new wave of digitization is only aimed at the tech-savvy youth?

As testers our role is immense. We just don’t realize it. Beyond the scope of technology, we have a greater social responsibility. And one of them is definitely to make digital apps more user-friendly and less intimidating for everyone.?

So during Moolympics #3, we presented a scenario in relation to the UX of banking apps and our five winners in the form of Dimpy Adhikary , Prashant Hegde , Rahul Parwal , Anuradha Raman , and Ajay Gamini offered some fascinating insights and suggestions.?

The Scenario:?

The scenario was a simple one. It’s very relatable in fact. The participants were asked to observe several users of mobile banking apps wherein they had to enter and re-enter an account number in order to add a payee.?

This is the step we all have to go through. However, this time around the vigilant testers observed the users and made notes on how they interacted with the digital apps. The idea was to capture the blockers and enablers of the apps and how easy or challenging the users found them to be.?

Inclusive Suggestions:?

According to test architect, Dimpy Adhikary , the majority of the users had revealed their discomfort while reentering the payee’s account. This discomfiture is mostly due to the fact that bank account numbers are long and hard to memorize. For that reason, she has suggested an alternative workflow wherein the users can utilize screenshots or images including the account number instead of typing in the same.?

Echoing Dimpy’s deduction, Engineering Manager (QA),? Prashant Hegde suggested UX innovation in the form of Optical Character Recognition or Scanning of the QR codes in order to auto-fill the account numbers. Both alternatives ease the pain points of the users and also diminish the chances of an error in entering and reentering the account numbers.?

With an aim of easing the same problem for the users, SDET Rahul Parwal has a different proposition. According to him, voice-based puts can really come in handy for users who find it tedious to type a long string of numbers, twice.?

Senior Test Engineer Anuradha Raman ’s alternative proposal encompasses various aspects including font size, background, and even visual and audio inputs similar to that of Rahul.?

Anuradha also pointed out the importance of using regional language for the UI design of the banking apps. Senior Engineer Ajay Gamini ’s solution talks on the same note where he stresses the fact that user-friendliness depends vastly on the language of the interface as well. Like the other winners of this edition of Moolympics, he too considers that voice-based commands can really be useful.?

Empathy is the Key to it all:

The thing that was most fascinating about the inputs received from the winners is that they all showed empathy. They acknowledged the user's pain points with utmost sincerity.?

Instead of talking about UX design to target tech-savvy consumers, they thought about the struggles faced by the users who are not. That’s where the testers donned the hats of Thought Leaders in changing the digital society for the future.?

*This competition was held in April 2021 and we had the honor of having the likes of Parimala Hariprasad as one of the panel members of judges, along with Pradeep Soundararajan , Chief Servant to Employees & Customers Moolya Testing. Working as the Program Manager in the UX Infrastructure team at 谷歌 , Parimala brings a huge experience and understanding of inclusion through UX designs. This article is a compilation of the answers shared by the winners, published with their permission.?