Somia Customer Experience

a customer experience consultancy based in Indonesia. we help companies discover insights about their customers and transform them into meaningful design and experiences

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GMIC Jakarta 2015

Good UX: Key Ingredients - presented at GMIC Jakarta 2015 from Ketut Sulistyawati

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Banking App UX Review: CIMB Clicks (Malaysia) and Go Mobile (Indonesia)

Many banks have realized the importance of mobile usage in daily lives and started allowing their customers to perform online banking via smartphones using their mobile app. In recent years, CIMB group, the 2nd largest bank in Malaysia and 5th largest in Indonesia, introduced their mobile apps named CIMB Clicks (Malaysia) and Go Mobile (Indonesia) apps for their users.

Despite the fact that both CIMB Clicks and Go Mobile app have similar rating on Play Store, both apps have completely different user interface and user journey. It is also interesting to learn that the Go Mobile app has more usability issues as compared to CIMB Clicks. Let us dive deeper into the usability of some important functions in banking apps, especially on bank transfer and bill payment.

FIRST IMPRESSION & OVERALL DESIGN

Upon launching the application, users are presented with the flash page. We have seen this as a trend across mobile banking applications, where users are not directly prompted to log in, but have the options to look up bank information such as the ATM and Branch Locator.

The main difference between is that Go Mobile allows users to switch between English and Bahasa language, whereas CIMB Clicks uses only English across the app, which is something common, as most major banks in Malaysia use English for their sites. Other than that, CIMB Clicks has a copyright description at the bottom of the app, which is something uncommon to appear on mobile apps since mobile screen are already limited in space.

As we compared both flash screens side by side, CIMB Clicks clearly does better in utilizing the space optimally by having a bigger button design and allocating sufficient space between buttons.  As for Go Mobile, having slim buttons sticking closely to each other and located at the top of the page can make it difficult for users to click on the right button, especially on a smaller phone screen size.

The button designs (shown above) are similar across different sections of the respective apps.

See the octopus there? The eyes are blinking from time to time!

FUND TRANSFER

Transfer Option:

The landing screen for bank transfer is pretty straightforward for both apps, users can easily identify and choose the transfer type of their choice. However, Go Mobile does slightly smarter by having a ‘Transfer To’ title on top and lists down the transfer option below it.

It might be unnecessary for CIMB Clicks to include ‘To..’ for each payment option. Although ‘Transfer’ section is highlighted at the bottom for both apps, Go Mobile is better in alerting users that they are currently on a ‘Transfer’ page.

Account Selection:

The arrow icon on Go Mobile inform users to click on any of the accounts to proceed. Take a look at CIMB Clicks, if there is only one account available (as shown in image), user might not know that the account is a clickable.  Other than that, it would be great to show the amount of money in the account section (like GO Mobile), as many users do not remember the lengthy bank account number.

Although Go Mobile does better in terms of discoverability for account selection, the word ‘Select Source A/C’ can be amended to ‘Select Source Account’, or ‘Transfer From’.

Confusing Account Details:

The selected Source Account is visible on the first section.

What appears to be the account number is underlined and in blue. When this is tapped, the user is prompted to call it as a phone number.

We found this odd and since it is designed as a link, user may expect that they will be able to look at the rest of the details of the account.

Transfer Amount Selection:

While inserting fund amount for transfer on Go Mobile, there is a currency dropdown selection, however, there is only one available option which IDR. There is no indicator or hint whether in other cases there will be other currencies. In order to proceed, user had to scroll to top to click on the submit button located at top right. Unlike CIMB Clicks, a ‘Continue’ button is conveniently placed right after the ‘Payment Details’ input section.

Error Message:

There was an error message that occurred when we tried to confirm fund transfer using Go Mobile.

This error message is vague and titling it as ‘Error’ can be perceived as something wrong on the bank side, the app or on the user’s mobile phone (app or hardware error). Another problem is that the user has no options than to tap “Okay”. This forces the user to agree with the error without having enough information or being offered a solution to fix the problem.

A solution to this would be informing the user any transfer limit on earlier step, instead of having the user invest their time to go into next step to find out that they have entered amount outside of the range permitted.

CIMB Clicks instead provide a clear and meaningful error message “Minimum Amount is RM1.00”, at the right time. It allows users to make correction very quickly without hassle.

Requesting TAC (Transaction Authorization Code):

Requesting TAC is one of the most common ways to authorize an online banking function such as bill payment or money transfer. We found that users might face difficulty in requesting TAC code using CIMB Clicks app. Take a look at the image below.

Did you see any button here? The ‘Request TAC’ is a clickable button that doesn’t look like one. One of our invited users stopped here and waited for TAC but failed, he didn’t realize that he had to click on ‘Request TAC’ button to request TAC. He is a CIMB customer who downloaded the CIMB Clicks app before but uninstalled it long time ago, because he thought he was unable to perform fund transfer.

Recurring Transfer:

The option for ‘repeating’ transfer is pretty straightforward. However, for users who are not familiar or have not tried recurring payment or transfer, they might be confused with the ‘Repeat’ function.

Thus, it is recommended to have a short description about ‘Repeat’, the description will then disappear when user tick on it.

BILL PAYMENT

Inconsistent Transition:

On Go Mobile, after choosing the credit card option on ‘Pay Bills’ page, user goes to the page labelled ‘Bill Payment – Credit Card’, which is inconsistent to the label used in the previous page (‘Pay Bills’). It would be better to keep the label consistent as “Pay Bills – Credit Card” to make the transition smoother.

There are two options below the page title: ‘Pay Bills’ and ‘My Favourite’. Since the user is already in the Pay Bills page, these options can be misleading. Changing the label to ‘Enter Details’ or ‘Load from Favourite’ would represent the actions better.

Lastly, user has to tap ‘Submit’ on top right to proceed to next step. The button should be changed to ‘Next’, as users might expect to submit payment when they see ‘submit’ button.

Biller Code:

The biller code can be confusing, especially for first time user. Although the app does inform users to enter either Biller Code or Biller Name, it can be easy for users to miss out this statement.

Users who’ve tried out this app (especially on money transfer) will understand that ‘Please key in’ indicates compulsory input, hence, users might thought that both Biller Code and Biller Name are compulsory to be keyed in.

Payment Confirmation:

In order to confirm bill payment on Go Mobile, user is prompted to enter the 1st and 3rd digit of the Mobile Banking PIN. This instruction is confusing, and there is no example or information on how to get these details, especially for first time users.

Unlike in “Transfer”, there is also no indication on how many steps user needs to go through to complete the bill payment process.

More Details:

Looking at the description ‘For more details, go to CIMB Clicks > Internet Banking > Bill Payment” , users might expect to see the relevant information about ‘Biller Code’ or ‘Account No.’ from the app itself, since the app itself is named CIMB Clicks, even the logo appears all the time.

However, we found that the app doesn’t have such section named ‘Internet Banking’. Likely, it was referring the CIMB Clicks website and should be stated clearly to avoid confusion.  Yet, we were unable to find the relevant information about Biller Code on the CIMB Clicks website too.

Should the app is able to provide relevant and useful details about Bill Payment, a direct link can be displayed directly. Of course, users have to be warned about exiting the app (and abandoning the bill payment process) if they agree to visit the specific site on browser.

RECAP

From the study above, it is learned that both apps have space for improvement to be a more user-friendly app. There are several key points that we can learn from these apps to create a better app.

Overall Design

Adequate button size and sufficient space between buttons.

Smooth transition between steps/pages.

Fund Transfer

Provide timely feedback to reduce user cognitive thinking (e.g. error message).

Clear title and avoid unnecessary content.

Keep affordances in mind: Design things that are clickable to look like they are clickable.

Bill Payment

Prevent confusing instruction

Provide simple guide, especially for first time users.

This is a collaborative project by Somia Customer Experience & Netizen eXperience

Authors:

Larisa Sitorus & Francisca Ayrhes Yensi are UX consultants at Somia Customer Experience (Indonesia).

Alvin Chai and Soon Aik are UX consultants at Netizen eXperience (Malaysia).

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Lutfi’s internship experience at Somia

Hi, I am Lutfi, I was a first year grad student at New York University majoring in interactive telecommunications when I did an internship in Somia from June 2015 - August 2015. It has been such a long and wonderful journey interning at Somia. I was lucky because I was assigned to a project that started one week after I start my internship, so I could prepare myself and get familiar with the project that I was going to work on. I cannot tell the detail of the project, but the project was indeed challenging, fun and rewarding. I’ve been practicing interaction design in academic context before the internship. But doing it professionally is different, the stakes are beyond academic grade. This professional situation encourage me to put extra effort, not compromise with design and constantly seeking for better solution. Fortunately, my boss and co-workers are supportive with my effort. Most of the time, I forgot the fact that I was only an intern.  Working in Somia is also a fun experience indeed. What I can say about Somia is a tight-knit group of experienced, talented and cheerful interaction designers. Somia team travel to Bali frequently, and I had the opportunity twice. It was so fun! Really, working in Bali is a privilege. Not anyone has an opportunity to have a rewarding job and work in relaxing environment. 

When we worked in Bali, we set up a pop-up office in Kumpul co-working in Sanur. It was such a vibrant work environment. It is located on second floor of Rumah Sanur, a creative hub with large open space, large windows, abstract paintings on the wall and and plants inside the room. There was always something cool happening in the first floor of Rumah Sanur, from music event to art exhibition. Entertainment and leisure is in your backyard (including Sanur beach which is only 10 mins of walk away). Forget the typical playful Googlish office, this is the best! 

Another great thing is you don’t have to worry about the traffic jam, there was little to none. Although we walked from our homestay to the co-working space, the absence of traffic jam and pollution is awesome and very relaxing. And also our homestay was very close to Sanur beach. So, morning run or breakfast on the beach is something that you have to expect! One more thing, for the first time in my life, I learn what is work-life balance. We worked hard during the day and we rewarded ourselves during the night. We always did something after the work is over. Either we ate out, visited cultural event or just hanging out on the beach. 

We had a great day in the end of my internship. We went to “Jazz Market by The Sea” in Nusa Dua. It was a music festival flooded by delicious food stalls. Aldi, one of the consultant in Somia won a paper plane contest and won a voucher for two-night stay at a 5-star hotel in Nusa Dua. Somia team ended up staying and working there for next two days. And the team gave me a farewell present in form of a notebook with some memorable stories of my internship written on random pages, that was really sweet. 

If you want to up your interaction/experience design career, you should apply to Somia, I really mean it. I had been trying to find Indonesian design firm who specializes in interaction/ experience design (think of Cooper, IDEO, Frog Design or Fjord) and there are only few who do it seriously, probably one or two. And for me, Somia is the only one who stands out. And also, since they’ve been asked to work for clients from different countries, I believe that it is possible to reach the pinnacle of interaction design career in Somia, to be a globe-trotting designer (Something like what Stadio D Radiodurans do). 

Lutfiadi Rahmanto Master’s Candidate at NYU ITP 

www.lutfiadi.com

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5 things to consider when doing intercept interview

1. Know what you are trying to find

Write the summary of the main research questions on a small piece of paper (like A5). Even though you already have your detailed interview guide discussion ready, the summary on A5 paper will help you to stay on the right track and keep reminding you what information that you should find.

2. Find somebody who is not in a rush

When you are in the field starting to find candidates, look for cues from body gestures of the people. Firstly, look for people who walk rather slowly and their eyes / gaze are not fixed into a point, avoid people who walk in a rush and have a focused gaze, usually they will reject you right away. Secondly, if you can make accidental eye contact, chances are they are not that busy and have a greater chance to be asked.

3. Find a ‘base-camp’

Sometimes when your intercept location is in a commercial centre (malls / market), it is quite uncomfortable to have the interview on foot, the distractions of people passing through and the surrounding noise makes it hard to have a conversation. In addition, the scenery of your team holding pen, papers, recorders and taking photos  would probably catch the attention of the malls’s security. What you can do is to split your team into two, one stays in a restaurant or cafè to get some comfortable seating for interview and the other team will search for candidates. Whenever the search team already found some candidates, bring them to the restaurant or cafè to have the interview.

4.Prepare incentives in advance

Plan ahead how many candidates that you are willing to get, then prepare the incentives for each of the candidates. You might want to consider how much time do you need from them and their core belief and culture to determine the value of the incentives. Also it always handy to have extra incentives If something goes out of plan, for example the interview took longer than you promised to them, so that you have to give them extra.

5. Watch out for your belongings

You have heard it many times. Yet, sometimes when we dwell and focus on the interview, we sometimes forget and being unaware about our surroundings. It happened to one of our clients while doing intercept in some malls in Jakarta, he lost his rucksack in a coffeshop. We were shocked and unaware that these things would happen in such places. So please be aware of your belongings when you do an intercept!

(DF)

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Serious hacking for mobile usability testing

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The Foodie Journey

Last week I was invited to Kecap Bango Kuliner Nusantara's panel discussion as one of the panelist. The topic is "Peluang dan Tantangan Kuliner Indonesia masuki Peta Kuliner Dunia" where I shared the floor with two others experts: one is no other than Om William Wongso, the well known Indonesian Food Ambassador, and the other is the historian JJ Rizal, who is also one of the candidate for Depok City Mayor.

Initially confused on how I can address my food blogging experience and contribute to the subject, a help was coming from the Customer Experience perspective, thus I can achieve something I've been longing to find: A connection between my passion (food) and my career (CX).

So I draft my presentation by putting the audience in the shoes of the customers, and carry them through the journey one would travel, in becoming an avid consumer of Indonesian food. I laid out four simple stages: Discovery, Onboarding, Exploration, and Mastery, which I label as "The Foodie Journey."

Bloggers, and foodies on social media plays the crucial part in two of the early stages, while the government plays a more significant role in the later two. 

Well judging by the look on the audience faces, the silence, and the nodding they made, it looks like the matter attracted their attention. Later it was covered in Antara's article here: http://www.antaranews.com/berita/483591/blogger-makanan-berperan-penting-promosikan-kuliner-i 

I'd publish another article on this matter, after updating the original slides with the insights gained from the discussion. (byms)

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DIY UX Audit from Somia Customer Experience

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Startups don't fail because they have a bad product, they fail because they have don't create great UX. Join us and learn how to growth hack to success!

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Because sometimes we need to do time lapse.

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Jakarta Service Jam 2015 - an intro

In Jakarta Service Jam, you are here to turn your ideas into a concrete design, prototype and plan of action which you or somebody else might want to make real. To grow the awareness of Design Thinking & User Experience in Indonesia: we expect that this event can build exposure for people to see Design Thinking & User Experience as a main concern in building service or products.

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The Importance of Customer Reactions

Perhaps the earliest industry that relies on Customer Experience excellence, today's CX practitioners could learn a great deal from the Hospitality industry.

For example why do some of hospitality businesses failed, despite it fulfils every standards existed, and why do some other gained success despite its obvious shortage here and there?

The reason according to Jon Taffer, the legendary hospitality consultant and host of TV show Bar Rescue, lies in what sort of customer reaction you could create.

Quoted:

You aren't in the service, food, beverage, beauty, law, accounting, merchandising, technology… or whatever other industry you define as your business. I believe you’re in the business of customer and employee reactions.

While there are five must-haves of any successful establishment: convenience, cleanliness, quality service, great value, and safety, to look at them as an end goal is foolish:

If all you need are these five basic elements to create a winner, then why do people park ten blocks away from a hot nightclub, step over puddles in its bathroom… pay three times more for a drink than the place next door, and walk through a dark parking lot in the middle of the night to get back to their car?

These business succeed because they do a better job at selling the true product—the customer’s reaction.

This is a state of mind that many product-focused entrepreneurs find difficult to understand.

Surely, if one product is “better” than another, survival of the fittest will win every time, right? You may like to believe so, but the truth is that people buy products for desired outcomes, which is why their reaction is so important.

You’re not selling your product; but you’re selling the ability to help your customers be awesome.

What do you think?

Read the complete article here: http://www.helpscout.net/blog/customer-reactions/

(byms)

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Sharing a Love of Street Food

Sharing his passion of street food experience, Somia's Senior UX Consultant Bayu Amus participated in the last Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2014 (UWRF) as one of The Kitchen's speakers.

More than outlining about how to attain the best street food experience, avoiding the unpleasant street food experience, the presentation also covers how street food matters in promoting the local cuisine culture, as well as becoming inseparable part of a travelling experience. 

The feat was in line with Bayu's previous contribution into the topic, by researching and writing for Makansutra Indonesia 2013 Guide book in 2013, along with series of article writings done for in-flight and food magazines outlining the beauty of Bali's street foods.

Presenting on the same topic was Ibu Amanda Katili Niode from Omar Niode Foundation, the Chair of Omar Niode Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Indonesia working to raise awareness on the quality of education and human resources in the field of agriculture, food, and culinary arts. She's also Indonesia’s First Certified Culinary Travel Professional of The World Food Travel Association, as well as member of National Council on Climate Change, and Manager of The Climate Reality Project Indonesia. 

To get a better exposure of the street food experience, Bayu also brought various street food satays for the audience to sample.

The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2014 (UWRF) brought together no less than 150 writers from around Indonesia and 25 other countries, sharing their view on global issues, big ideas and extraordinary stories.

More information about this event can be found here: http://www.ubudwritersfestival.com/

The presentation slides from this event can be downloaded here: http://www.slideshare.net/kangbayu/sharing-a-love-of-street-foods-11

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UX events in 2015

It's 2015! For you who are planning to learn more in the UX field, here is our curated list of go-to UX events for you to check out:

Interaction 15 / San Francisco, USA / 9-11 Feb 2015 

UXHK 2015 / Hong Kong / 6-7 Mar 2015

SXSW Interactive 2015 / Austin, USA / 13-17 Mar 2015

Smashing Conference / Oxford, UK / 17-18 Mar 2015

UX Munich 2015 / Munich, Germany / 19-20 Mar 2015

LeanUX15 NYC / New York, USA / 15-19 Apr 2015

CHI 2015 / Seoul, Korea / 17-23 Apr 2015

MX Conference 2015 / San Francisco, USA / 20-21 Apr 2015

UX Poland 2015 / Warsaw, Poland, 20-23 Apr 2015

IA Summit 2015 / Minneapolis, USA / 22-26 Apr 2015

Customer Experience 2015 / Melbourne, Australia / 8 May 2015

UX London 2015 / London, UK / 20-22 May 2015

UXLx 2015 / Lisbon, Portugal / 3-4 Jun 2015

UXPA 2015 / San Diego, USA / 22-25 Jun 2015

UX Week 2015 / San Francisco, USA / 25-28 Aug 2015

UX Australia / Brisbane, Australia / 25-28 Aug 2015

Cheers! 

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Sketching

Aya sketching ;)

... Sketching is leveraging the Visual. Words are powerful, but sometimes they don't cut it. We can try to describe what we're imagining, but a diagram often gets us to a common ground quicker... (Why We Sketch by JARED M. SPOOL)

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Somia end of year trip to Ubud

It’s been a busy year for us, from one challenging project to another awesome projects. And it is the time to play hard! Hmm.. I mean to travelling hard. We decided to end this year with a trip to Ubud, Bali.

So what we did in Ubud? Finishing some reports, sketching and synthesizing our research findings. No! Even we were not there with laptop. 

Arrived in Ngurah Rai International Airport around 9 am, we started our adventure from Nasi Pedas Ibu Andika as our breakfast, a bold breakfast. Next stop is Gusto Gelato, one of the most delicious gelato in the island.

Five minutes ride from Gusto Gelato is our Bali office where Sulis, Bayu & Aya do their UX things. 

Just for your information, taking selfie is a must every where we stop. :P

The next day, we went to Don Antonio Blanco Renaissance Museum, the house of Phillipine-born maestro, located on a hilltop overlooking the lush valley of Campuhan. 

This museum houses paintings, collages and illustrated poetry, together with lithographic artworks of Antonio’s favourite subject: nude Balinese women. Unfortunately, visitors are not allowed to take photos inside the museum. So somebody took intimate pic with the bird instead :p

We spent our time walking around Ubud, some of us did yoga, and the others walked around and enjoyed some good foods. 

On the last night of our trip, we did team gift exchange and post up our next year plans. 

There are so many plans on the list, so many things to do and so many cool projects to come, and we believe that we will make it happen, excited! Happy holiday!

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“Each of us carries within a secret yearning - a yearning that, as time and life march on, often becomes a secret sorrow. That yearning will be different for each of us, as it is the most deeply that we - each of us - are able to bring forth our own heart’s core will our lives feel fulfilled, trully worthwhile”

George Kinder

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