CV
Designing Product Vision
During my work in Sber the MAU of our apps has grown by 3,5 times (23 to 82 mln), and DAU by 5 (8 to 42 mln). DAU/MAU ratio in 2022 reached 52%, approximately equal to the stickiness of messengers and social networks.
Sber is the largest bank in Central and Eastern Europe, where I worked for 5 years. The bank then had over 250,000 employees, about 15,000 in the Retail Business unit, where I was leading the design of the core finance app with 80+ mln MAU.
To achieve scale and decrease T2M, the banking app architecture was divided into 150+ microservices, each developed by a separate agile team.
As a result, design expertise started to fall apart. Product teams belong to different business units, each with its own goals. The fragmentation increased rapidly because each department imagined its future differently and hired designers to implement their ideas. My mission was to combine scattered designers' efforts by prioritizing and creating connections between business initiatives based on user data. That's where user-centric principles played a crucial uniting role.
However, there is only one product for the client: CX must be seamless, UX must be clear, and UI must be consistent.
For example, when we announced the relaunch of an Investment app in 2021, we used the same principles I tested and implemented here. Pre-made Vision and UX architecture guaranteed a lack of time-consuming meetings because multiple departments had already agreed upon general directions and statements.

To reach target user acquisition metrics in the Investor's app, we designed a smooth edutainment bridge between a core banking app, which I explain below in detail. We tried to build responsible and easily manageable CX to prevent people from thoughtlessly losing their money using risky products for the first time.
So, in addition to my team reviewing the design of the functions coming to Sber App and developing a design system and UX principles that ensured consistency in scenarios, I started forming an image of the future product through numerous meetings with various departments to create product vision presentations.
Ultimately, it allowed us to align the intentions of 200+ product teams, IT-leads and C-levels by designing high-level visons with an assembly point for 2-3 years for business and IT.
Then, the key product visions were presented and accepted by the First Deputy or Board's Chairman and became a north star to which we are all moving. After that, deprioritizing some crucial points in terms of UX became much harder and each subordinate business goal inherited the key ideas from the Vision for years.
After making a vision to launch a new product in Sber established as a standard, adjusting operational work became much more manageable: at the launch of new products, in making architectural decisions, at the development level, and, of course, in the design review process.

That's what I call design-driven development paradigm and what I was proud to bring to life in Sber.
Earlier, like in other banks, our main screen was just a list of the client's products. But there was an endless sheet of numerous opportunities, not answering real clients needs.
In multiple studies, we have confirmed that people have two common finance interaction patterns: daily banking & savings. The first is speed-oriented, where the less time the user spends — the better; the second is much more about thoughtfulness with a desire to improve financial literacy.

That's how we imagined Spaces to emphasize these differences in behavior.
So, I decided to separate these two user behaviors into different tabs and arrange products according to clients' needs. It was a bold move; no bank had done that before, so I ensured this idea with multiple user research.
Savings Space was about your financial future: lifetime events planning and thinking of long-term goals. So deposits (70% of clients), saving goals (8.3%), investments (2%), pensions (20%) and PFM features moved here.

Also we solved a problem of 26% clients who were worried that someone might see their actual balances on a main screen when loading the application in public spaces, transport etc.
We also cared about our brokerage account owners (1,3 million), who got a customizable screen with the opportunity to switch the Saving tab into Investor's mode and focus more on their relevant products and dynamic widgets.
Stock owners now were able to see the market dynamics more clearly. Transition to investment's app finally become natural.

People with a lack of finance literacy get an opportunity to start their educational journey with assistance — we created a pile of trigger events with explainers helping them to begin consciously creating financial cushion, saving money, starting investing, etc.
The main screen now has more focus on daily banking, which is obviously money transfers to family and friends and quick access to your cards.

We tried to make the transfers more convenient by organizing them in the form of a familiar messenger pattern, where the history of transfers and messaging context is clearly visible. And it was a breakthrough in engagement, especially for younger audience.
In addition, daily activities were supplemented with notifications about user actions and status updates, even by Sber ecosystem products, which the bank began to fill rapidly. Whether it's an upcoming card delivery or a new bill for electricity.
According to the idea of maximized personalization, we filled each key tab with multiple widgets that appear based on user behavior and action frequency.
Finally, we implemented this pretty flexible system into the core product that allowed product teams to promote their features and engage a specific audience of users with higher efficacy.
The Savings screen became the growth driver for PFM's MAU. The Total Funds widget increased by 2 — from 7 million in July to 16.4 million in August.

And most importantly, we solved the problem of an overcrowded main screen and created a new space for the focused development of savings related features. It was visited by 57% of users who updated their app the first week after release.
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