Emirates Islamic Digital UX

The Problem

As the sole UX designer within a ten-person agile squad at Emirates Islamic, I was tasked with enhancing the digital customer journey across retail and online banking channels. The team focused on bug fixes, addressing customer feedback, and implementing feature requests.

1. Traditional banking environment: As part of a traditional bank, it's very hard to explain the importance of user experience to people.
2. UX maturity: A prevalent challenge was the limited understanding of UX design as a distinct discipline. Design was often equated with development, and the significance of clearly articulating problem statements was undervalued.
3. UX in an Agile environment: The two-week sprint cycle demanded efficient planning and execution of design tasks. Close collaboration with development was essential as their work was dependent on design deliverables.

Approach

1. Discovery in grooming: By actively participating in grooming sessions, I ensured a deep understanding of user needs, business objectives, and the validity of user feedback. This critical analysis enabled precise problem identification before assigning story points.
2. T-shirt sizing UX stories: To arrive at correct story points, I sized user stories assigned to me based on complexity and hours required, based on my experience — e.g. a simple UI enhancement (2–4 hours) sized "S" would need to be fixed across 3 digital channels.
3. Paper sketches: To optimize ideation within tight deadlines, I used paper sketches to quickly ideate and brainstorm ideas with the team.

Results

Agile methodologies accelerated time-to-market, enabling rapid feedback loops and iterative design refinements based on customer interactions.

1. Increased digital adoption: Within 2 months of our squad's first release, digital adoption rose to 55% by the end of our squad's tenure — 20% more than the success criteria of 35%.
2. Addressed UX feedback: Addressed 75% of the UX feedback from customers by the end of 14 sprints.