Fiserv
Talking to a cash machineBackground
Fiserv is a leading software provider for financial institutions. I was part of a team re-designing Transact — a 90's application for bank and credit union tellers handling in-branch transactions — and transforming it from outdated desktop software into a modern web-based application.
This particular case study is about particularly complex transaction — Cash back — that I was tasked with bringing into the 21st century by integrating the it with the physical cash machines that sit next to teller to collect (recycle) and dispense.
It had to be flexible
Requirements
The Cash back transaction needed to do the following with regard to cash machines:
- Seamlessly integrate with machines hardware and software of several cash machine companies
- Have a UI flexible enough to accommodate both machine that only dispensed cash and machine that both dispensed and collected (recycled) cash
- Support all the transaction options offered by various financial institutions
- Adhere to banking regulations
Constraints
Challenges included ensuring compatibility across different cash handling machine software, navigating limited insights from business analysts, and fitting the new design within an established design framework.
Legacy interface for how tellers would find out what type of cash machine they are sitting next to and what its capabilities are. I've also included a side-by-side comparison of Transact's legacy Cash Back calculator and my redesigned version. The solution was to nest the design system's toggle in tabs, so that users could use the same calculator for tallying both amounts and tender, the requirement being that we accommodate various bank's and tellers' ways of tallying up money.
Approach
I worked closely with the business analyst to deep-dive into the requirements, creatively adapted the design to incorporate calculator functionalities within the existing framework, and introduced a dual-layer tab system to optimize tablet use.
The userflow for how a teller using a cash machine would intake (recycle) cash both using a machine and using the drawer. The challenge of designing for bank transactions is we have to accommodate every possible request type from customers — even ones that may seem nonsensical and inefficient — because banks are required by law to satisfy them.
Challenges and Solutions
I navigated the fragmented information landscape by iteratively refining the design often — setting up multiple check-ins per with with the business analyst so we could go back to both financial institutions and the IT teams of cash machine companies — ensuring the application was satisfying the users first, then the diverse hardware and software requirements. All while adhering to Transact's new design system.
Outcome
The end product was a user-friendly, modern web application that streamlined teller operations and aligned with modern web standards, significantly improving user experience within Fiserv’s ecosystem.
