Overview

BACKGROUND

The Experience Strategy and Design (XSD) studio at Microsoft is a CX
research and design team that creates impactful experiences for customers, employees, and partners.
‍
As part of Purdue's UX experience studio coursework, I was tasked with discovering a way to build Microsoft's financial service industry (FSI) customers trust in AI solutions under the guidance of Sr. UX Researchers.

PERSONAL CONTRIBUTIONS

  • Project Roadmap + planning
  • Literature reviews
  • Figma wireframes, mid-fidelity, and high-fidelity prototypes
  • Concept testing
  • Led co-design workshop with experts
  • Team presentation and documentation

TIMELINE

12 weeks

TEAM

Me + 9 Purdue UXD students

TOOLS

Figma
Miro

Skills

UX Research
Design Thinking
UX Prototyping
Interaction Design
User Testing
AI + Design

Jump to Final Designs

PROJECT GOALS

Build FSI customer trust in AI

Help FSI customers be more trustful and willing to adopt AI services provided by Microsoft.

Enhance AI security and accessiblity

Make AI solutions more secure and accessible for FSI clients and their users.

Improve customer retention

Encourage FSI customers to continue to purchase Microsoft's AI services over long periods of time.


THE PROBLEM

Microsoft is attempting to leverage their AI solutions into the financial services industry.

However, FSI customers hesitate to adopt AI due to perceived security risks, ethical concerns, and strict compliance protocols requiring human oversight.

I was tasked with finding a way to build FSI customer trust in AI solutions.

STAKEHOLDERS

Financial services industry organizations

Banks, FinTech companies, credit card service providers, schools, investment firms, and all other financial services customers utilizing Microsoft products and services.

AI & CX/UX Teams at Microsoft

Collaborated directly with Sr. UX Researchers in Microsoft's Experience, Stategy, and Design studio, plus other teams in FSI and AI to provide new solutions for their customers.

Target User Group: "Digital Natives"

Digital natives are individuals born after the 1990s who have grown up with digital technologies and expect an intuitive experience that FSI firms are currently lacking.

Design & Research Approach

I followed Google's Double Diamond design sprint process consisting of four iterative phases that expand upon the problem/idea, then narrow down onto a specific approach, resulting in my team's final AI solution.

I focused on answering the following questions during the research process:

Discovering AI Opportunities

I learned about the affordances and limitations AI proses to FSI customers and the needs of Microsoft FSI customers through a secondary research sprint.

COMPARING EXISTING AI SOLUTIONS

  • Literature Review: examined 30+ research and business articles focusing on AI capabilities + risks.
  • Comparative Analysis [3x]: compared strengths and weaknesses across 8+ AI tools used in FSI (Azure, Ask Fargo, Gemini, TaxGPT, etc.)
  • SWOT Analysis [4x]: analyzed strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats across AI types, competitors, customers, and current AI tools.

FINDINGS

  • AI poses privacy risks, making protecting personal info difficult.
  • FinTechs are pressuring traditional banks to keep up with AI trends.
  • Banks are hesitant to adopt AI due to the security and legal risks, which existing AI tools rarely address.
  • FSI Customers are needing more security, efficiency, and intuitiveness from AI tools.

Above is the SWOT analysis. By asking myself 'So What?' after each analysis, I was able to connect the findings to the bigger picture.

TALKING TO AI & FSI EXPERTS

6 FSI experts, 2 Computer Science experts, and 2 AI experts at Microsoft and other organizations were interviewed in a week long sprint to understand how AI could be more feasible.

Note: this project is a work in progress. Come back soon for updates!

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