There’s a lot more focus on inclusive design these days with some massive organisations really doubling down on embedding the ways of working and culture change that will really make a difference. But I still feel like there’s a long way to go.
As a reminder that it’s still a thing, here’s a short video of me talking about it as part of 11:FS’s Inclusive Design Campaign.
There's more to banking than biscuits
I’ve spent a chunk of time this year working in the wealth space. And pulled together some of my thoughts in this article. This was originally published on the 11:FS site, you can read it here if you prefer.
Over the past few months, 11:FS Ventures has seen a spike in interest from clients in private banking and wealth management.
There are a lot of different nuances to these conversations, but they generally have a couple of goals in common:
We need a new customer base (usually younger and/or with a lower cost of entry)
We want to broaden what we do for our existing customers (usually to build deeper relationships or get a bigger piece of the pie)
Side note: it’s always interesting when we see a burst of interest from a specific business area. Sometimes it’s triggered by a new entrant to the market, the mass adoption of a new technology or a social or economic trend. My hunch, in this case, is that as fintech investment players like Robinhood and Wealthfront scale, customers and execs from traditional wealth management services and private banks get excited about the potential that digital can offer.
To achieve either of these goals, private banking will need to shake off the white gloves and embrace going truly digital.
Being truly digital means building products and services with the full possibilities of the modern digital landscape in mind. It's moving beyond digitised to truly digital. You can learn more by reading through our Truly Digital Manifesto.
Private banking is a world where exclusive access to people and experiences is as important as effective investing. For years, the illusion of personal service has made up for a lack of real utility.
Private banking is a world where exclusive access to people and experiences is as important as effective investing.
I recently heard an anecdote about a visit to a private bank. The standout moment wasn’t the great advice or healthy returns, but the biscuits - made with honey from the bees on the roof.
I love biscuits, but it feels like a change is coming.
So, what might the future of private banking look like?
Hypothesis #1: Private banks will better meet their customers' real functional needs.
They’ll recognise that many high and ultra-high net worth individuals have needs more like small businesses than individuals and will provide more appropriate tools and services.
The new generation of truly digital investment specialists will push private banks into offering better investment tools. But this process will commoditise what has been ‘special’, leaving private banks vulnerable to churn.
And this brings us back to the biscuits.
No one chooses or stays with their bank because of the home-baked snacks. To protect and grow your base, you need to do the basics well and then be super clear about what you stand for. Which leads us on to…
Hypothesis #2: Private banks will invest in digital services that meet their customers' emotional and social needs.
Intelligent use of data will create huge opportunities at the intersection of private banking and philanthropy. Increasingly, people want more from their philanthropic efforts than a tax-efficient wrapper, and the private bank that can move fast to capture this opportunity will win customers who are looking for a bank with purpose.
For years, private banks and wealth management specialists have been grappling with how to crack multi-generational banking. Hyper-personalised, intelligent services that accommodate multiple profiles, permissions, views and goals in one family account will finally become the norm.
Crypto. After speaking to high and ultra-high net worth individuals in recent weeks, it’s plainly clear that crypto as an asset class is here to stay. But to a lot of people it’s scary, complicated and high risk - which makes it a no-brainer for private banks to simplify crypto and bring real value to their customers.
Hypothesis #3: Private banks will recognise that truly personal service only works if the customer feels seen.
70% of widows change their financial advisor after the death of their spouse, largely because they’ve been sidelined and patronised by their husband’s advisor for years. So when they’re looking for advice they go elsewhere.
In future, private banks will strive for inclusion, representation and equity of experience - not just with regards to gender, but in all things. Do this, and the world will be a happier place.
In future, private banks will strive for inclusion, representation and equity of experience
So, where is this change going to start?
If this is being driven by the threat of better digital tools and services from fintechs, then the logical place to start will be with functional needs (Hypothesis #1). But it’s often super hard to make those changes: legacy tech, complex systems and congested roadmaps can make ‘upgrades’ harder to achieve than radical change.
My approach would be to work out which of your customers’ social and emotional needs best align with what you want to stand for, and go after that space. But do it inclusively, with an eye on making your customers feel seen as well as served. If you’d like to chat about how we can take you on that journey, then get in touch.
But if you’re set on earning your customers’ enduring loyalty through biscuits, here is Nigella’s recipe for the perfect shortbread. No bee hives necessary.
This article was originally published in April 2022.
Smart people; interesting problems
Almost to the day of my one year anniversary at 11:FS, I was made redundant. Tricky market conditions and a couple of big projects going on hold pushed us over the edge into needing to cut costs and batten down the hatches.
So I’ve been reflecting on the year I spent heading up the 11:FS product team (partly as a way of updating this site without creating a hundred separate posts.)
Team is the best bit. I have grown a team of motivated, effective, talented product managers who are the driving force behind the business. We’ve worked together to define our purpose, focus and rolling areas of improvement (feedback, communication, influence…). They are leading the charge to embed a solid feedback culture and a demand for excellence across the business. I wish them all stellar futures as the sparks that make the magic happen at 11:FS and beyond.
Product in a consultancy is a perfect mix of rigour and chaos. You have little control over the context you’re working in and as such need to fine tune your ability to influence without authority. You strive for best practice but frequently settle for best case scenario in the service of keeping things moving and getting stuff done. Being able to embed better product thinking and ways of working can be a battle but also a privilege - tiny steps are still steps in the right direction.
Despite huge attention around and interest in inclusive design in the design and product communities over the past few years, it’s still almost always an afterthought when people are actually designing products and services. We still have a lot more to do and I’m working out new ways of getting it to stick in people’s minds.
Everyone thinks they want to work in product. Researchers, salespeople, delivery managers, strategists have all come to me in the last year and asked if they can move into the product team - I’ve had more non-product mentees this year than I have had direct reports. Why is this? I think in part it’s because because there’s room to grow, endless new things to learn and as a product person no one ever tells you to stay in your lane.
So what’s next? I’m planning to take the summer off - enjoy living by the seaside, playing with my 5 year old and growing courgettes. And then we’ll see.
What is Growth? A short talk I did for Idean's Beta Business Makers' Meetup
Building a high-performing Service Design team for a major utilities company
what is it
My client is committed transforming into a customer centric organisation. As part of that transformation, they have re-organised how they think about, design and deliver customer experiences - putting a small team of service designers at the heart of the process.
I’ve been working with the service design practice to help build confidence, clarity about the role of service design in the organisation, identify skills gaps and plan a programme of coaching.
the approach
Having a shared team purpose and values are key factors in building a successful team so I started by co-creating purpose, vision, mission, values and behaviours with the team. Having put this framework in place we’re now working through ways of making them real (including coaching the team leads on how to anchor every decision and communication back to the purpose).
We’ve also started work on a Service Design Handbook, to act as a reference guide for the team, a Role Overview pack to support future hiring and a training programme to help them level up.
At the heart of the programme are new team rituals to support the values and behaviours - including show and tell sessions, a drop in clinic where they can bring knotty problems and 1:1 coaching for the team leads.
Co-creating the handbook
the results
It’s early days, but the feedback has been positive and the team is motivated. The real results will be be seen in a few months, when the organisation is clear about the role of Service Design and the team is recognised for the impact of the work they do
Everybody is welcome: Building an inclusive design capability at Idean
what is it
Over the last 18 months I’ve been on a mission to make Idean the most inclusive Design studio in the UK. In that time I have established new tools and ways of working to embed inclusive design practices in all our projects, as well as shaping and launching two online tools to help other teams to design more inclusively as well. I talk about Inclusive Design on this podcast.
the approach
Since December 2019, I have built a team of Ideanists who feel strongly enough about Inclusive Design to run workshops, onboarding sessions, create new tools and templates and write blog posts in the quiet moments between projects.
We have embedded an inclusive design culture in our projects, built a reputation for inclusive design in the design industry and been invited to speak at some high profile events.
My biggest achievement is leading the conception, development and launch of two game-changing inclusive design tools. Cards for Humanity and The Universal Score.
Let’s play
Cards for humanity can inspire teams to think more inclusively in minutes.
Cards for Humanity is an inclusive ideation tool which helps build empathy and can uncover interesting unconscious biases.
The Universal Score is an evaluation framework that supports product teams to level up the products and services they’re designing by prompting them to think about inclusive design across five dimensions.
The results
Cards for Humanity has been played by over 19,000 people in 116 countries.
Update: It’s won two awards in the Drum’s global design awards, including the prestigious Chair’s award and Design Impact Award.
Universal Score has only been live for a few weeks, but we’ve been getting great engagement with around 60% of visits completing the whole evaluation framework (this is a pretty big deal) to get their results.
Raise your game
The Universal Score is an inclusive evaluation framework that helps teams design and build more inclusive products and services
The team continues to be super motivated and committed to making Idean the most inclusive design studio in the UK.
from reactive care to proactive support: Redesigning added value services for the UK's biggest mutual insurer
what is it
This insurer was one of the first to offer value added support services alongside their insurance cover, but over the years it had been superseded by more exciting propositions from the competition. It was underused, but also expensive to run. We reimagined the service - shifting from a reactive ‘care’ service to a more proactive service designed to help everybody to live life to the full.
the approach
We used customer research to understand which propositions resonated most strongly, why they didn’t use the current service and what might make them engage more positively with their insurance provider.
We then ran a series of quick experiments to understand which of the propositions was most likely to succeed. The standout proposition was one which used personalised proactive tips and guidance to help customers live well (primarily across health, mental well-being, activity and sleep) we then designed a pilot to test the service with a small handful of new customers before needing substantial investment. The pilot covered customer experience (including a messaging framework), partnerships, operations and data for which we created a pilot blueprint.
the results
One of the objectives for this long-term client is always to build the product and service design capability within the client team. For this programme we built on the research and ideation skills we had introduced in previous projects, but also introduced new prioritisation tools, how to run experiments and pilot planning.
Thinking about pilots
The team learnt a lot during the pilot and made a few changes to the proposed service offering (new partners, different rewards, a simpler messaging framework), but they also learnt that they have tech and data capability gaps that they need to address before scaling the service.
They have now rolled experiments out to other teams and are excited about the opportunity to quickly test and learn beyond formal research testing.
What do we do with all this data?: Exploring APIs as a revenue opportunity for a UK high street bank
what is it
This API strategy piece is the result of two projects - an initial exploration to see if the bank should, and could stand up an API business, and a second phase to explore where they should start.
the approach
Phase one combined expert interviews, secondary research and opportunity sizing with a detailed review of how the bank should go about such an endeavour. While they had the tech capabilities, running an API business was alien territory to them and they would need new skills, new structures and new business models to make a success of it.
The report was well received and many of its recommendations acted upon. The second phase involved getting into the details of where to start - what APIs would potential partners want to consume? How did the commercial model stack up? How should the bank prioritise where to start? I spoke to internal stakeholders with ideas for APIs and the CTOs and CEOs of API centric organisations to identify key themes we could organise around.
the results
The bank invested in redesigning its developer tools and portal, and prioritising key external APIs in its tech roadmap. A separate API business unit was set up with different skills and ways of working to help accelerate the pace of development. The biggest challenge the bank faces in capturing the API opportunity is the time it will take to see a return on investment.
Building culture in a design agency
Adaptive Lab is a design consultancy with a strong focus on the importance of culture - both internally and with clients. They asked me to help them make a book that would both define and support their culture - both for the current team as well as potential future hires and clients.
What is it
'The book of Awesome' aimed to capture Adaptive Labs processes, philosophy and values in one place - a cultural artefact. Framed as a futurespective, the book is set one year into the future freeing the content from the need to necessarily be accurate!
The approach
I designed a workshop to generate the bulk of the content - getting the team to think about the kind of work they'd like to be doing, in conjunction with identifying future trends as well as how the company values support the way they get work done.
Taking the raw workshop materials I worked with different team members to turn the outputs into 'stories' for the book.
The results
Aside from uncovering a shared obsession with zombie invasions, the process of building the book uncovered areas where the values weren't totally clear to the team. And working up the 'imaginary' projects showed a shared ambition to use design to connect people - embracing both globalisation and decentralisation.
As an artefact, the book continues to evolve.