Over here we were discussing the (now not so) new Monzo design. I mentioned a few things that I thought would improve matters, but then I wondered what small tweaks could be made to the app to make it better?
Let me talk you through it, but first a quick note about an important principle I’ve worked to: the bottom row of buttons should be for global commands, not ones that are context sensitive. What does this mean? Well, they should be for functions that relate to all accounts, rather than specific to the account selected in the feed. Hopefully that’ll make sense as we go!
There’s a new bottom button to see all your accounts / pots. Instead of relying on the swipe down to see all accounts (although that’s totally still a thing) there’s a new button to get you to the existing screen.
The Home button has been renamed Feed. That seems more accurate to me - some people will see the Accounts button as the home, some the feed. The app should remember which tab you’re on when you leave it and return!
There are new tabs for analysis and budgeting. I’m seeing analysis as backward looking - where did your money go historically (and maybe a bit like this)? Whereas budgeting is forward looking and helping you do better in coming months. These are on the bottom because they cut across all of your account and pots - seeing where your money went - or budgeting - is better if you can hook in all of your other accounts into Monzo.
Search and payments have become floating action buttons (FABs). That’s because they relate specifically to the account shown on the feed screen. Payments would (hopefully) lead to a much better experience that’s consistent across accounts and pots. If if could work for external accounts too, my life may be complete. Although, life completion would also be dependent on a better, more configurable search - hopefully with filters you can save and reuse.
I’ve removed the button on the top left that takes you to the accounts screen. Instead, there’s a cog to go straight to settings (the same as on the accounts screen).
Help is now in the top right. It’s not on the bottom row as it should be context sensitive for the tab you’re in - which will help with automating common queries. But it should be on every screen in the same place.
Finally, what I didn’t add, but I think should a A Thing is a card to the left - a master feed of all your accounts, all in one place. That would be amazing.
Finally, I’m definitely not a professional designer, so there may well be better ways of tweaking, nipping or tucking. If there are, please educate me - or come up with your own versions!
Thoughts?
(PS liberally tagging @bruno (although furlough), @nexusmaniac and @HughWells in case anyone a Monzo would like either inspiration or a laugh, depending on reaction!)
Love your thinking. A lot of this I had thought of as well and what you’ve articulated makes sense in my head at least. I love the idea of budgeting pulling in info from all your accounts and hopefully would include any open banking connected accounts as well. My only criticism is the FABs. I can see why you’ve got them as they relate to the account you’re looking at but they don’t feel quite right, certainly if this was iOS. Unfortunately I can’t think of another solution. Also the master feed idea is genius. Hopefully something akin to this is on Monzo’s radar.
Any suggestions for alternatives? I’m struggling to find a way that gives you easy access to search and transfers that’s not a floating button. (In my mind they’d appear and disappear depending what’s going on).
I think you have to consider the reasoning and why things should and shouldn’t be the global tab bar. For me, Payments is one of the most important reasons you’d use the app, it should remain in the tab bar globally available and easily accessed at all times, 9/10 times you’ll know what payment you want to make, how much and who too, it should be a simple and easy process. Whilst the payments section of Monzo needs addressing, I think it should always remain in the global bar and easy to access. The user flow inside that tab is another debate entirely
For me search should remain at the top(not everybody will use it enough to make it that prominent), along side budgeting how it currently is. I don’t think the budgeting across all accounts and pots would work for the majority and would probably add more confusion. Maybe there could be a way to get too a global all account budgeting screen from the all account feed page? I know that I personally would like to keep budgeting to a per account basis, but that’s just the way I use Monzo.
On top of all that, FABs wouldn’t be a thing on iOS so unsure how you’d combat that issue
One solution could be to fix those buttons to the top of the pull down feed (above the date and spend). Failing that, as Payments are so fundamental it should be a global button with a more elegant solution than currently to clearly show what account you’re paying from.
Unless search is a primary interface for interacting with the app, it’s probably best left where it is currently in the app, at the top of any panes that need a search function. If you want to make it more prominent, perhaps activate it via a swipe down gesture (although this wouldn’t work with Monzo’s current design).
Transfers almost certainly needs its own tab and interface independent of the feed. It’s too vital an aspect of Monzo to be reduced to a contextually aware button.
The issue I have with FABs is when they’re done in a contextually aware way that they just disappear and appear as needed. In focus groups I’ve been involved it, they can lead to confusion. FABs are best used as consistent actions a user may wish to perform from within any of the app’s interface panes. Transfers would have been a great candidate for an FAB and would make sense if it wasn’t such a prominent part of the Monzo experience. I think a help button would work well as an FAB too. It can provide contextually aware results, while being consistently available throughout the app.
When I consider less tech oriented users, I don’t like your use of the word Feed for a tab that is essentially just a list of transactions, so I feel like transactions would be a more fitting name that a larger group of users will more readily understand what that tab is for.
Yeah this was my thinking as well @Peter_G definitely for search anyway because its tightly coupled to the feed.
Payments maybe another thing like alluded to you could want to get to payments from any number of places within the app so it would be harder to pin down access points for.
Id be more inclined to keep it to the bottom bar at present
