How Alinma went all in to become
a leader in digital banking services
in Saudi Arabia.
Alinma Bank
WEBSITE
B2B
2023
[ around the web ]
[ PROJECT SUMMARY ] Alinma Bank is one of Saudi Arabia’s banking giants. But even giants must keep their finger on the pulse and improve their services regularly. That’s why the bank was looking to polish their online suite and fully redesign some key functionalities.
Industry:
Banking
Products:
Website
Market:
B2B
[ HIGHLIGHTS ]
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Founded in 2006, Alinma Bank is a key player in the banking sector of Saudi Arabia
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The bank made it to the Forbes World's Best Banks in 2024
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Awarded at the Islamic Retail Banking Awards in 2022
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Committed to CSR, impacting education, health, and environmental sustainability
Scope of work
[ Goals ]
Set new standards for
digital banking services
Redesign key functionalities
Although Alinma’s digital suite offered numerous valuable features, customers didn’t use them because of the unintuitive design. That’s why one of the main goals was to redesign these functionalities so users could make the most out of the platform.
Give a nod to foreign clients
Another important part of the redesign process was to make the platform attractive to foreign corporate clients. To make this expansion possible, the website's business-oriented site needed a smart revamp.
[ Challenges ]
Stimulate user
engagement with
intuitive design
Simplify the architecture
Alinma wanted to refresh the website and make it more intuitive. The goal was to rebuild the app's architecture and navigation to support its usage and client-oriented interface. (And to achieve that goal, we teamed up with Sumerge’s Delivery team).
Keep the design consistent
The main design challenge was maintaining the UX consistency for all of Alinma’s products – banking solutions for big enterprises, SMEs, and retail. Another one was to keep the platform user-friendly for every type of customer.
[ Discovery ]
Polishing the shared
visual concept
Refreshing Alinma’s website was a joint effort of Flying Bisons and Sumerge. We were responsible for the design and UX/UI side, whereas Sumerge served as the business advisor for the bank services, and was responsible for software development. The goal was to express the bank’s uniqueness and individual approach to clients.
By meaning this, Alinma’s executives wanted to make the platform look professional but with a modern twist and a clear human touch. It was motivated by the fact that, while large companies used their services, real people represented these organisations.
Thus, the goal was to retain the human aspect of the platform through a personalised user experience despite its business-related nature.
To achieve that pleasant character, we thoroughly analysed Alinma’s customer data and, together with Sumerge, conducted workshops with their team to formulate a shared vision of how we want the new website to look.
As a result, we worked out a brand new visual style for Alinma Bank,
including UX concepts, a colour palette, and typography.
[ UX/UI Design ]
Merging corporate
interface with a modern
twist
What does it mean in practice? The main idea that set the direction of UX and UI design was to create a business-oriented interface while making it easy to use and intuitive, like a hip start-up from Silicon Valley.
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Refreshed functionalities
With Alinma's new visual concept, the platform also needed some deeper changes. These included:
rebuilding the information architecture,
combination of a few essential functionalities,
creating a new, customisable user dashboard,
simplifying the way how charts were displayed on a screen,
streamlining the user interface,
optimising the user journey,
new, intuitive navigation within the platform.
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Customisable dashboard
You only get one shot to make a good first impression, and Alinma doesn’t want to let it slip. That's why the main dashboard, where users start after logging in, is designed to be welcoming and intuitive.
With customisable features, users can personalise the main screen, benefiting from new charts for improved data visualisation and helpful hints for easy navigation.
Additionally, a new left-side panel simplifies user paths and provides instant access to essential functionalities. -
Contextual design
A banking platform's interface doesn't have to be complicated.
Alinma's redesigned platform is easy to navigate and simple – all thanks to shortcuts and a new left-side panel. These simple yet very efficient features make an impression as if the system is leading users by the hand. -
New information architecture and navigation
To build an easy-to-use and intuitive banking system, you must care about information architecture (IA). The new platform provides users with clear navigation bars and keeps the hierarchy of features in one consistent order.
Also, while browsing the platform, users may encounter hints about similar or complementary features to those they use at a particular moment.
[ Design System ]
Setting up efficiency
benchmark with
design system
As our cooperation with the Sumerge business and delivery teams expanded and the complexity of managing changes and team coordination increased, a need to streamline our workflow arose. That’s how the idea of creating a consistent design system was born.
Introducing a UI kit containing essential components facilitated smoother workflow and accelerated the creation of new screens. This step sped up the development and ensured consistency across Alinma’s digital presence, integrating UX and UI more effectively.
Key aspects of this system included:
Routine updates and reviews of the design system, ensuring continuous improvement and consistency.
The use of N. Curtis’s EightShapes plugin for documentation, which significantly eased the onboarding of new team members and streamlined the working process.
The introduction of design patterns, which addressed specific cases and decisions within the project, reduced time spent on discussions and clarified the project’s direction.
A changelog and a linking system for better version control and navigation between project modules.
[ Delivery ]
Delivering the results
with Sumerge
For delivery, Sumerge – experienced in building self-service portals in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and many other MENA countries – proposed an approach to digitally transformation Alinma through supporting, maintaining, and face-lifting their current digital platforms. Considering Sumerge’s banking industry knowledge, we were sure this was the right approach.
[ Results ]
Refreshed digital banking
experience on the Saudi
market
The design system improved the speed of adding new features. Apart from an efficiency boost, it also helps maintaining the design's consistency.
As a result of the above, Alinma not only tackled immediate scalability challenges, but also laid a strong foundation for future innovation.
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