COLLABORATIVE FUTURES
Glasgow School of Art X Royal Bank of Scotland | 2018 - 2019
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A collaboration between Glasgow School of Art MEDes students, recent MDes graduates and the Royal Bank of Scotland, the project explored the current values of customers and translated their existing behaviours into emerging forms of future customer experiences in the context of the UK in 2028.
Desk Research
To gain a thorough understanding of both the financial and health aspects of the brief, the team kicked off the research process with a broad investigation of existing information - from online articles, academic reports and policy documents. This was contextualised by exploring past, current and future trends in finance, health and also wider society.
Our Journey
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Feeling Financial Health in 2028
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Evidence Wall
Collectively we pieced together this raw data, allowing us to both analyse and synthesise our research and identify key themes. These themes are playfully captured in this stop-motion video.
Key Themes
Customer Experience
With fast growing technology advancement, more opportunities for gathering relevant data emerge which leads to even more personalised products and services.
High Street
Physical banks and cash machines are closing down across the country, as more people are switching towards digital banking and cashless transactions. The role and shape of the high street has been changing.
Bank Culture and Spending Behaviours
Some communities have begun rejecting the global economic system by creating their own local currencies. This year (2018) marks the 10-year anniversary of the biggest financial crash in recent history where people started to become more curious and cautious about the financial sector.
Digital and Financial Literacy
Financial literacy in the UK is low and this can present worrying consequences when many are making financial decisions. It is also a moving target depending on your life stage. When it comes to poor digital literacy, the causes are much more nuanced than age. Finally, jargon is a problem in both health and finance and often creates a barrier between patient/doctor or customer/banking advisor.
Financial Education
From a young age, many are hidden from their families finances which has a potential impact on how they view money in the future. Having the knowledge and developing skills to become financially literate is a lifelong process as your financial needs change.
Research Cards
This research was then condensed and began to form the content for a deck of Research Cards. These would act as a reference point for our research, used to shape the next stage of the project and to be referred back to at later stages. We would later use this deck to share our gained knowledge with relevant stakeholders and participants as a tool to encourage discussion, gather insights and spark speculative imagination.
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We took some time to creatively explore different ways to convey our research as the use of the cards would dictate their design.
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During the third week of the project we had the chance to join the Royal Bank of Scotland UX team at their HQ in Edinburgh. The visit to Gogarburn was planned to test the use and design of the deck of Research Cards and collect varied feedback. Designers from the Edinburgh design studio, Nile, attended the testing session to input their industry expertise.
Health
Today, we are seeing the government take a more proactive approach to national health problems. People who take more control of their health have been shown to have a better understanding of their condition. Other areas in the health explored were teachable moments, self-mangement in health, technology advances in healthcare and precision medicine.
Economics
There has been a rapid rise in self-employment and the 'gig economy,' changing the way people work and ear money. Crowdfunding and peer to peer support has also risen.
Data and Digital
This theme explored the rise of Fintech companies, the rise of sensor collected data, gamification of health and fitness and the increasing personalisation of the digital services we use.
Politics
This theme explored the rise of globalism, the Brexit vote and austerity and the impact this all has on the future of people's finances and health.
Please see the Appendix for all the references which informed these themes.
Once back in the studio, a workshop with Santini Basra from Studio Andthen allowed us to start reviewing our collective research in a more lens-focused way. By pulling out the small trends from our Research Cards and clustering them together, we were able to build focal points and highlight larger key Movements.
Now, with a strong grounding of knowledge gained through the synthesis of existing research, we were able to focus our attention on consolidating our facts and creating clarity. We did this through a series of interviews with industry experts as well as facilitating stakeholder engagement.
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Expert Interviews
Our field research included a range of branch visits in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and a show stopping tour of physical and mobile branches in rural locations within the Highlands. This gave us the opportunity to meet branch staff and financial advisors, and customers with ranging needs. Expert interviews were held with citizens advice organisations, 3rd party career and money advisors as well as social robotics professors and social media influencers.
"You’re still trying to get things done for the customer, and the service element is still a major part in my job. Part of what we are doing here is trying to encourage folk that they have an option. It’s not a case of either or. It’s a case of we can do it, the online system can do it. But if we can’t get to it then atlas you’ve got an alternative."
Bank Employee
Forres Mobile Branch
"A lot of people if they’re struggling either don’t know, or don’t want to talk about it because it can be an embarrassing thing to talk about. So from here we do a financial health check and that's where we talk about key areas in their life, lifestyle as well as their banking."
Bank Employee
Royal Bank of Scotland, Byres Road Glasgow Branch
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"The vast majority of people we get in are subject to change: it could be a loss of a job, it could be the breakdown of a relationship, it could be ill health which has forced that change in their circumstances."
Citizens Advice Bureau
"The value of AI is that it has the potential to give us a much deeper understanding of our own humanity. It can certainly be harnessed for a really good ends like that."
Social Neuroscientist and Professor of Social Robotics
Institute of Neuroscience & Psychology
Future Customer +
Narrative Building
Now, with a broad insight into current and future financial, health and social trends, backed up with expert recommendations, we were able to start forecasting future narratives and explore the people and services within them. This took a speculative approach but was strengthened by undertaking a range of user interviews which focused on people’s relationship with their finances and how this affected their life decisions.
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"I have the same fear of bank managers as I do of doctors."
Self-employed Business Owner
"The service user wouldn't have to do much with their money unless they wanted to. But I think that makes it more or less abstract for the user. It can be a bit odd."
Carer
"You are never designing isolated elements, you are always designing something that is connected to, and will impact a wider system.
It is important to understand the changing behaviour of that system — nothing is static."
Santini Basra
Studio AndThen
To create these narratives we explored a series of quick fire ‘What if’ questions, helping us to think creatively and imagine new possibilities for 2028. Through grouping these ‘What if’ questions we began to build up scenarios which would later form the backbone of our future narratives and people.
In a one-day workshop with studio Andthen, we storyboarded these scenarios and used playful toy figures to create 30 second, low-fi videos allowing us to begin to visualise specific future narratives.
Future People
From these initial narratives came the development of a varied pool of future people - informed by our previous interviews and inspired by speculative predictions, ‘what will people be like in 2028?’ and ‘what will their needs and experiences be?’
We were able to enrich the profiles of these people, by taking into account their key characteristics to include digital and financial literacy. We used these as a basis to develop the core characteristics of our final future people.
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"Integrity of banks is a false ideal."
"I would only bank with a bank I trusted."
User Engagement Participant, Male, 67 years old
User Engagement Participant, Male, 30 years old
Exploratory Sessions
+ Engagement Materials
To further explore our condensed research we had planned two engagement facilitations.
The first, which took place at Gogarburn, allowed us to trial the function of our narrative experiences (future customers, scenarios and landscapes) and receive feedback from a range of specialist Royal Bank of Scotland employees. Our participants included members of the Home-buying, Branch Design, Marketing and Data Analysis teams, who were ready to engage with our artifacts. The engagement exercises were designed and adapted for each session with a goal to explore how different situations and environments can influence customers and their relationship with the bank, and to learn about possibilities for the future role of bank staff and branches.
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"I think shared communities might be the future."
User Engagement Participant, Male, 67 years old
"Morality and ethics of banking are too far removed."
User Engagement Participant, 30 years old
We also had the opportunity to run one-to-one interviews with ten participants in a series of viewing studio sessions at Taylor Mackenzie. The participants were selected according to both their financial and digital literacy. This allowed us not only to test user attitudes towards banking and future worlds, but also to observe these engagements through two way mirrors. For this we created a series of engagement materials, creating an interactive interview technique where we were able to explore participant’s behaviours and attitudes towards their finances.
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Analysing Evidence
Insights started to be formed from analysing the feedback from both testing days. With the help from Edinburgh based Service Design studio, Nile, we explored a variety of methods in order to condense and make sense of the rich data we had collected. This included the affinity mapping of interviews and using data software to create visual graphs and compare data.
The Current System
People can be sceptical about the current banking system.
Key Insights
Values
People stay loyal to their bank through habit, they feel there is no reason to leave them. Empathy and transparency are recurring themes which people value in their bank. This insight also explored local banking systems and convenience.
Attitudes to Money
This insight explored the short-term attitude towards money some have, and how it is provoked by a variety of situations.
Family and Peers
Advice from family plays a fundamental part in developing financial understanding, and this education best starts from a young age.
Aspirations
Consideration of finances are a crucial factor during pivotal moments and when planning for the future. Better understanding of money management allows people to be more aspirational.
Tangibility
The introduction of AI and self analysis can help to create financial independence. However, this will only be effective if there is a tangible aspect to the service and it is easy to access.
Data
People seem unaware of the value of their data. Data sharing can be seen as valuable if it acted as a trade off to receive a better service. However, people worry about security of their financial data.
Artificial Intelligience
AI could help to take over mundane taks, ensure a proactive approach to their finances. When it comes to data and provacy, we considered if the AI can alert citizens every time their data is going to be used.
The Role of the Bank
Primarily, it seems participants placed a lot of importance on trust and transparency as a key value of the bank, and the idea of trust is linked to the physical presence of the bank.
How People Use Services
In general, people are using digital banking for the day to day management of their main account. When it comes to alternative banking, people tend to use this as an additional service to their traditional bank account.
Design Deliverables
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The deliverables of this project bring to life a future speculation of the environments that could exist in 2028 and the role the bank would play within these.
The final deliverables include Spheres of Influence, which were used to group our research and analysis and to provide a context where the Behaviour Groups could organically inhabit. Alongside this are the Future People, which includes future staff and customers, who inhabit different spheres. Each sphere contains a Touchpoint, a point of interaction between the people and the bank. A book captures all of our Design Directions and Recommendations, as well as an overview of the project process. All of these deliverables, as well as the tools we used in our research and engagement, can be found here.
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