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Case Studies
900 days of progress

How to get the most from Case Studies

BFM+Exclusive

900 days of progress

8 mins
about
MonzoRevolutStarling+9 more
from the UX of Banking
Starling
  • 1. Fixing issues

More than 900 days ago, I published a series of case studies called the UX of Banking. These benchmarked and compared the user experience of 12 banks in the UK.

It was a forensic process: logging, timing and cataloging everything on their mobile apps.

Those 6 chapters from 2020 demonstrated how far ahead the challengers (Monzo, Starling and Revolut) really were, compared to most of the high street banks.

And now we have a unique opportunity to re-benchmark them, and highlight what 900 days of product development looks like.

Has the gap widened? Which of the legacy banks are actually chipping away at the deficit? And ultimately, which are stale experiences that consumers should avoid?

1. Fixing issues

Over time people demand better user experiences from mainstream apps. Having a great UX is no longer a unique selling point—in most industries it's a necessity.

My intent, two and a half years ago, was to publish literally hundreds of reasonable suggestions and then quietly track the changes.

Some of these were obvious bugs, many were highlighting missing context, and all of them resolvable to a meaningful degree.

To be clear, building complicated products rarely follows a linear path of progression. But over a multi-year span, the ability to resolve these issues, and innovate around technical limitations is key.

Here's how they got on:

Note: the three 'challengers' have been grouped at the top of this chart for clarity.

Peter Ramsey, Built for Mars Founder

Written by Peter Ramsey

Consultant to 100+ companies

Published: 17/01/2023
Last edited: 01/04/2025

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