web2.0

Me-too brochureware banking

Take a look at this template.  Header and navigation at the top, large hero to the left, with three product panels beneath.   Log-in to account is on the right with information on security and help beneath.  If you want to be an information architect for a bank, it would appear this is all you need.  This is your cookie cutter to success.

Webpage tempalate

Don’t believe me?  Start with Lloyds TSB.

Lloyds TSB homepage with overlay

Yep, that seems to fit.  how about Halifax.  Almost the same grid being used there.

Halifax with template overlay

Can’t be coincidence can it?  Let’s look at HSBC… There’s the hero again. And the three content boxes. And internet banking on the right.

HSBC homepage with overlay

This is getting a bit repetitive.  What about Santander?

Santander homepage with overlay

There’s a pattern going on here. Looks like they are all at it! Does any other industry segment from such ‘me-too’ism? If it was the right model to be using it wouldn’t be so bad, but their consistency is around consistency of what they do. No-one is really thinking about the customer and what they want. Barclays gets close, but there’s little in the way of understanding customer needs and goals. Little to support customer journeys. It’s all about the Bank, with Products and Services. And Access your accounts on-line! (And ‘We’re so complicated we need help on our home page’). And if everyone else does it obviously we are doing The Right Thing. Does this matter? Isn’t there a better way to design a bank’s brochureware pages?  I’m looking for examples.  I fear I’ll be looking for a while.

Bank home pages all the same

Web 2.0, retail banks and a Slide Share presentation

This is nothing new, but there are still people out there to whom Web 2.0 is a bit of a mystery. What exactly is it, and more to the point, should our business care about this stuff? Or, as I have heard senior executives argue, is it just another bubble, a distraction to let others waste their time, effort and money on. In an attempt to challenge this assumption, I’ve used a model with a few sceptical clients to hang some structure on. This is central to the below presentation that I’ve given to a few financial services organisations. It discusses what Web 2.0 is, and towards the end describes what it could mean for their on-line retail bank website. (Thanks to Duncan Cragg and Prashant Gandhi for some insights).

[slideshare id=377944&doc=web20public-1209431680446543-9&w=425]