Here is my thinking behind these mock-ups. They are based on a set of hypotheses:
- Pulse is broken. The current account has meant that it peaks then effectively flatlines for many users.
- The information that lots of users are looking for when opening the app - specifically the Summary dial - isn’t on the home screen.
- The Summary tab is muddled. I’m not sure it knows what it’s for and I’m not sure it summarises anything.
- Monzo is in danger of becoming a challenger bank in the sense of challenging the big banks’ market share, rather than challenging what it means to be a bank
- A wow/delight factor is missing from the app - we’re getting extra functions (which I won’t complain about!) but I fear we’re missing a bit of the gloss, of the extra touches to charm and delight us.
These designs are meant to address these hypotheses - so if these hypotheses are incorrect then the designs will be wrong!
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m not saying that Monzo should evolve to look exactly like this - but that the concepts behind them might be worthy of consideration.
In particular:
Pulse needs replacement.
I’ve suggested two views: one which brings in the critical information from the Summary dial and one which is effectively Pulse as it is at the moment but for discretionary spend only - i.e. excluding regular bills etc - that way it’d work a bit like it used to as a pre-paid card.
I’m conscious that Monzo has sought to reduce options and maintain a clean app, but I think having two views that you could either swipe between or pick as your primary view would go further to delight users.
Moving critical Summary information gives us the option to rethink the tab
There’s been a few iteration of this tab. Spending (as it was originally) gave breakdowns by merchant as well as by categories (on Android, at least). There have been some calls on here to bring it back, and there have been some requests for better search functions - which seem to me to be about better data analysis (who have I spent most money with? And so forth).
Repurposing this tab as an analysis tab let’s you present this information in - hopefully - a visually stunning way. And I think that visually stunning is important - it delights the user, is something that you’d want to show other people and helps to market Monzo.
I also think it’s an opportunity to differentiate Monzo. For very good reason, Monzo is currently plugging functionality gap and building out standard banking functions. But this is to challenge the incumbents for marketshare - we also need to be challenging the notion of what a modern bank is. Some advanced data analysis would really help nudge in that direction, I think.