Industry
Fintech U.S.
Client
Data Center Inc.
Year
2022
Project Time
18 months
Context
DCI (Data Center Inc.) is a leading provider of banking technology and services, with nearly 60 years of experience supporting community banks across the United States. The company provides digital solutions and manages operations for more than 200 community banks nationwide.
GoOpen is a comprehensive white-label application that empowers community banks to create and customize their own account application forms through a fully integrated system that delivers a seamless user experience.
Problem
Bank account opening forms in the U.S. are often lengthy and vary from state to state. In this context, DCI approached us with a challenge: to design fully customizable, seamless forms that adapt to each bank’s specific needs.
Solution
To achieve the results, we had to redesign three legacy systems, each responsible for a different level of form editing and customization:
Admin
Used by the DCI team to configure each bank’s environment.
Workspace
Used by banks to build and manage their application forms.
Application Forms
Client-facing forms generated from the previous setup stages.
Discovery
Framing the problem and understanding user needs
To define the problem and align the solution with user needs, we conducted a comprehensive UX research focused on understanding the U.S. banking landscape and the specific challenges faced by community banks. The process included:
Current software mapping: Conducted a heuristic evaluation to identify usability issues and critical pain points in existing legacy systems.
Desk research: Analyzed the context of community banks in the U.S., using Federal Reserve reports and other industry sources to understand regulatory and operational constraints.
User interviews: Collaborated with the DCI team to uncover pain points in configuring bank environments and to identify the main issues reported by banks through customer support.
Competitive benchmarking: Studied key competitors and fintechs offering modern onboarding experiences to identify best practices and innovation opportunities.
Personas: Identified the main user personas who interact with community banks to ensure the product’s language, tone, and flows align with their needs and expectations.
At the end of the Discovery phase, we defined the main goals to guide the redesign and align outcomes with both user and business needs:
Enhance the Admin experience to streamline bank setup
A smoother Admin platform enables the DCI team to onboard new banks faster and configure their environments with less friction.
Improve the Workspace experience to empower banks with autonomy
Redesigning the Workspace reduces dependency on DCI’s support team by giving banks the tools and clarity they need to independently create and manage application forms.
Create application forms that preserve the personal relationship with customers
Community banks are built on trust and personal connection. The new forms were designed to reflect that same approachable tone and familiarity, strengthening the customer experience.
Expected Results
Shorter setup and completion time for application forms
Fewer customer support requests to the DCI team
Higher number of account applications
Develop
Developing a Design System
Working closely with the development team, we decided to build a comprehensive and scalable Design System to ensure visual and functional consistency across the Admin, Workspace, and Application Forms platforms.
After analyzing the legacy codebase, we identified that implementing a Design System would bring several advantages, including:
Scalability
Using a unified Design System across all platforms ensures long-term consistency and allows the DCI team to easily extend components to future products and features.
Faster Implementation
With documented styles, components, and logic, developers were able to implement pages more efficiently, accelerating the overall development process.
Cleaner Code
Building the Design System from scratch enabled the team to refactor legacy code, remove unnecessary exceptions, and maintain a cleaner, more maintainable codebase.
By implementing this Design System, we enabled real-time rendering of custom fields, enhancing user clarity and making it easier to identify which elements could be added to application forms.
We also expanded the Design System to support motion assets and micro-interaction animations.
Usability Tests
After completing the Admin and Workspace flows, we conducted two separate rounds of usability testing (one for each app) to gather feedback and validate whether the improvements in usability and UX writing were clear, effective, and aligned with user expectations.
The results were highly positive: most participants found the new applications intuitive, user-friendly, and visually appealing. A few minor flow adjustments were identified during testing and later implemented to further enhance the experience.
Deliver
Handoff and Implementation
After completing each flow, we prepared detailed handoff documentation to support both Front-end and Back-end developers. Notes were added directly in Figma, outlining navigation logic and business rules.
Additionally, we created a BPMN diagram, where each lane represents a distinct application: Admin, Workspace, and Application Forms, along with the APIs that connect them.
This documentation significantly improved developers’ understanding of the system and helped reduce dependencies and clarification requests during implementation.
BPMN diagram illustrating the connections between Admin, Workspace, and Application Forms, as well as their integration with APIs. This diagram was developed in collaboration with the back-end development team.
Overall Project Results
The new Design System reduced page development time to 10 minutes
streamlining the development process and ensuring consistent delivery.
39% cost savings
on total project value compared to a US-based vendor.
25% cost savings
on total project value compared to a provider based in Kansas, where the client is headquartered.
Metrics We’d Like to Track
As consultants, we didn’t have direct access to post-launch data, but we identified a few key metrics we’d like to track:
Average time to complete the bank setup
To measure how efficiently both the DCI team and partner banks can configure and launch their environments after the redesign.
Number of drop-offs
To compare user engagement and identify whether the new experience reduces abandonment rates compared to the previous application process.
Number of completed applications
To evaluate how the improved usability and clearer flows impact form completion rates and overall conversion.
What I've learned
Improved collaboration with developers
Working closely with Front-End and Back-End teams helped me refine documentation and handoffs by adopting a shared technical language and better understanding development constraints.
Communicating in a multicultural environment
Collaborating with an international team from start to finish strengthened my ability to express ideas clearly in English and adapt my communication style across different cultures.
Define metrics early to measure impact
I learned the importance of establishing success metrics at the beginning of a project. Doing so enables meaningful follow-ups and helps align expectations with stakeholders from the start.
