DESIGNING A SUPERIOR BANKING EXPERIENCE

Oregon Coast Bank

In 2001, a handful of Central Oregon Coast community members sparked an idea that would revolutionize how they re-invest in their communities: Establish a banking institution in their communities, to serve their communities. More than 100 coastal residents invested in the new idea, and in July of 2002 Oregon Coast Bank opened its first office in Newport, Oregon.

Today the bank has grown to include six offices and well over $180 million in assets. More importantly, Oregon Coast Bank has invested more than $480 million into their communities in the form of loans to local families and businesses.

ROLE
UX STRATEGY / UX DESIGN

COMPANY
DAYLIGHT STUDIO

COLLABORATORS
VISUAL DESIGN: MIKE BRANSCUM
CONTENT STRATEGY: ALAN ROBINSON
PRODUCER: DANA LACEFIELD

Woman looking at Haystack Rock at the Oregon Coast

Project Goals

1. Update Brand Presence

As the existing website had aged and was bent to accomodate new forms of content its identity faded. Coastal community members needed to be reflected in the brand and the institution's web presence needed to be modernized.

2. Establish Security and Trust

Financials are one of, if not the largest motivator of stress. Trust is inherit in Oregon Coast Bank's business ethics, but its website lacked credbility and a sense of security. Additionally, customers need a seamless online banking experience to stay engaged and feel secure investing in a relationship with the bank. The website needed to be updated to address these flaws.

3. Highlight Civic Engagement

With Oregon Coast Bank's foundation built on community relationships, the website needed to reflect them. The website is a platform to highlight the institution's civic engagement, strengthening their communties through giving and volunteering.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Content Audit, Card Sorting, Sitemapping, and Identifying Key Themes.

Through our discovery process, competitive analysis, content auditing, and card sorting we uncovered the key themes that would inform the structure of the website. The themes we identified were: personal & business banking, support, location and branch information, and civic engagement. It was important to reorganize banking content so personal and business banking solutions had individual portal pages to direct customers to key content they were seeking quickly — contrasting the current experience of thumbing through endless pages with stark content . Most important, when establishing the new hierarchy, customer support and log-in paths to the different platforms were highly prioritized.

Sitemap

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Low-Fi Wireframing

Through the UX strategy process low-fidelity wireframes were used to rapidly convey ideas and concepts to team members and key stakeholders.

High-Fidelity Wireframes

High fidelity wireframes were generated to define priority content placement and confirm UI elements satisfied UX & business goals prior to visual design & development.

Visual Design and Development

The new site has elevated usability, is modernized for contemporary coastal banking customers, and is on par with the financial institutions that dominate the market.

*Development is currently in progress. Updated stills and live site to come.