Team and Mentors
🎓 1 UX Designers (Me)
🎨 1 Product manager
🍲 2 Senior UX Designer
My role
Research, Journey Mapping, AI flow, Wireframing, Prototyping, User Testing
Duration
12 Weeks
Overview
Banking feels like a chore: The 90-minute struggle
HDFC branches manage 100M+ annual visits, but the experience is plagued by overcrowding and manual verification.
A typical bank: full of crowds and uncertainty
Our data showed a troubling pattern
73%
Customers abandon transactions within 5 minutes, revealing the need for real-time wait visibility
90%
users must carry physical IDs to a branch to get their work done.
Project goal
Redesign the HDFC branch visit experience to reduce in-branch time and visit-related uncertainty, strengthen authentication, and eliminate physical ID dependency within 12 weeks, using AI-based smart scheduling and secure digital identity verification
impact
Smart Visit leverages AI to transform traditional branch visits into efficient, predictable, and satisfying customer
experiences
65%
Faster ⌛
Reduced average branch time by ~20 minutes through AI-led preparation.
80%
User Preference
8 out of 10 users preferred Smart Visit over traditional branch visits.
Setting out to solve
Let's look at the existing experience
After visiting 4 different branches, from Tier 1 to village, interviewing 23+ individuals and bank employees, this was...
The visit journey is fractionated into 6 stages and 2 parameters.
Due to limited time, it wasn’t feasible to deeply explore all user profiles, so after discussing with my mentor, I focused on Students and Young Adults and documented their key behaviors and observations.
UX
Time
Total time
60-90 min
As we can see the current traditional process is highly unpredictable, inefficient, and impersonal, leading to a frustrating and time-consuming experience for customers. This is a critical problem to solve for a leading bank that derives 60% of its revenue from daily in-branch transactions. With over 1,000 new branches opened in 2024 alone, the need to modernize these workflows is urgent to ensure scalability and maintain service quality
Goals
1️⃣ Reduce total in-branch time for customers. 2️⃣ Digitize identity verification to remove physical ID dependency. 3️⃣ Make queue wait times predictable and manageable. 4️⃣ Improve operational efficiency while reducing transaction abandonment.
Pain Points
1️⃣ Long and unpredictable wait times (70–90 mins average visit). 2️⃣ High abandonment rate when wait exceeded 5 minutes (75%+ drop-off). 3️⃣ Repetitive manual ID checks causing verification delays. 4️⃣ No pre-visit preparation, leading to repeated document requests and longer handling time.
Saumya
PHD student | Age: 27 year
Is there anyone solving it?
Insights from Competitive Analysis
Leading banks and startups
concepts from leading banks and emerging startups
Biometric Authentication
Customer Onboarding and KYC
Fraud Detection and Prevention
Personalized Banking Experience
Queue Management and Customer Insights
Security Monitoring and Surveillance
Possible Solution
Based on the field study and some discussion with our mentors. I came up with the how might we approach for this problem
💢
help customers know what to do before they reach the branch?
🪪
verify identity without physical IDs?
📍
guide users to the least crowded branch or best time?
⌛
remove uncertainty around branch wait times?
💬
make teller interactions faster and more personal?
🛣️
Enable advanced query tracking with instant updates and feedback during the service process?
The solution
Let's brainstrom
Me, Narendra sir, and Rahul sir brainstormed on a few key concepts and eventually prioritized three feasible concepts that could deliver impact.
Solution 1
Introducing a conversation AI for prescheduling
We researched that most people usually rely on others or sources for what documents to bring and take to the branch, unaware of how much time their work will take. So why not cut the hassle and introduce an in-house AI assistant
Solution 3
Emily's E-commerce Success
Emily, the CEO of BloomTech, transformed their marketing efforts using AI-powered tools. This shift resulted in a 60% increase in ROI and a 45% improvement in customer personalization, leading to a surge in brand loyalty
Solution 2
Emily's E-commerce Success
Emily, the CEO of BloomTech, transformed their marketing efforts using AI-powered tools. This shift resulted in a 60% increase in ROI and a 45% improvement in customer personalization, leading to a surge in brand loyalty
AI assistant that suggests documents, finds the best, fastest, and nearest available branch and slot for a visit, and actually generates an appointment QR code after validation with branch data
Designs
Customer journey
AI Assistant prescheduling
AI alerts users in advance about a required bank visit
QR Code generation
QR code notifies users and enables quick in-branch access.
At branch
Appointment and get moving
User books a slot and proceeds inside the branch.
Teller dashboard
Teller sees user details and requests instantly and greets the customer.
App Prototype
Teller Dashboard
Experience in Banking Setting
See how Saumya visited the bank using Smart Visit feature
User testing & impact
Testing with the users
I tested prototype with few friends and recorded the time and noted their experience
Success matrix
Time saved: 25 min
Live projects:
Below are a few live projects I've worked on in collaboration with designers at HDFC Bank.
UX audit of a B2b saas platform
This project involved a heuristic evaluation of the smart Vayapar platform.
eva AGri Ai
EVA Agri Loan: I was tasked with designing and prototyping this conversational AI, EVA, which aids in the agricultural loan process and reduces processing time by 40%.
Figma prototype for this
Guru's feedbacks and BANGALORE office
Few reviews I got for my final presentation
fun office and cool mentors!!
Awareness
User notice the need to visit the bank
15 min
Preparation
Collect his/her IDs and document, Direction to nearest bank
10-15 min
Travel to Bank
Walk/cycle/public transport from hostel/home/shop/office
depend
Queue and Wait
30-45 minutes during peak hours
15-20 min
Teller Interaction
Explain yourself, Show physical IDs, fill forms manually
10-15 min
Receipt and Exit
No receipt or SMS in 80% cases, Verbal Info
10-15 min
Thankyou, for reading