An intuitive, user-centered information architecture is crucial for the success of digital applications. We take a look behind the scenes at Finfox and use our tablet solution FinfoxTouch as an example to show what role navigation plays in an optimal user experience.
The topic of user experience (UX) has become increasingly important in recent years due to the rapid advances in digitalisation, which have fundamentally changed the requirements of users. At Finfox, UX design is therefore given central importance.
Our most recent UX project focused on FinfoxTouch, our tablet-based advisory tool for interactive customer advice. The new, completely revised information architecture offers a user-centered navigation layout that meets the most modern UX requirements and will provide advisors and their customers with even better digital support in personal investment advisory meetings in the future.
Conceptual approach or «Reduced to the Max»
The following goals were at the forefront of the redesign of the FinfoxTouch navigation:
- Implementation of an intelligent information structure that is suitable for both holistic consulting and specific use cases
- Providing a comprehensive and dynamic overview of all available content
- Inclusion of modern navigation patterns
- Responsive navigation for different screen sizes
- Ensuring possible future scalability
- Optical reduction of navigation with a strong focus on the content («Reduce to the max»)
- Validation of ideas in a co-creation process with our customers, in the form of comprehensive user feedback and user testing
- Establish a logical navigation hierarchy to allow the user both lateral and sequential navigation
Navigation as a storytelling tool in consultation
At Finfox, we view navigation as a visual storytelling tool that should enable consultants to guide their clients efficiently and clearly through the individual steps of the consulting process in a personal conversation.
The FinfoxTouch navigation structure contains four basic areas.
- Header area
The header contains the following elements in the basic configuration:- Company logo
- Client and portfolio allocation
- Various quick actions (e.g. landing page, customer documents)
- Access to the mega menu with an overview of all possible topics at a glance
- Collapsible header area to increase focus on the content
- Topics
The central page title presents the current topic in a prominent position (in the image, "Suggestion"). Next to it is a preview of the next upcoming topic, so that the customer advisor can mentally prepare for it during the consultation and adjust his storytelling accordingly. Clicking on the page title brings up a fly-out dialog with an overview of all the existing topics. The dialog enables quick switching between topics that are further apart in the consultation process. The topic area supports common interaction gestures such as swiping: This allows the customer advisor to switch between the different topics easily and effortlessly using a swipe gesture.
- Subtopics
A topic includes various subtopics depending on the context (e.g. the subtopics backtesting and stress testing in the topic “analyses”). These are presented as usual in a group of tabs. The main focus of the revision was on the visual redesign of the tabs in order to better harmonise them with the rest of the navigation.
- Dynamic mega menu
The dynamic mega menu is the heart of the modernised information architecture in FinfoxTouch. For the customer advisor, the mega menu, which is dynamically composed depending on the context of the consultation situation, offers a complete overview of all content and functions, including customer documents or customer search. The customer advisor can thus easily navigate between the various topics and subtopics of the consultation. The dynamic design of the mega menu enables a focused and context-related presentation of the relevant information.
Validation of the design
Once the new information architecture and navigation were defined, it was important to ensure that the redesigned FinfoxTouch application met the needs and expectations of users. Validating the design through testing is an essential step in the UX design process that ensures that the final product is both functional and user-friendly.
The UX team recruited several test subjects, both internal and client-side, to complete various tasks related to navigating between the topics and subtopics. The test subjects were also asked about the visual aesthetics of the application ("desirability"). Participants were asked to select from a list of both positive and negative adjectives those that they associated with the redesigned FinfoxTouch application.
The feedback received was consistently positive and led to further optimisations, which are reflected in the new design of FinfoxTouch.
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