Case Study: Business Banker New Account Workflow

Streamlining Business Account Onboarding at Ironcrest Bank

Role: UX Designer / Design Lead

Platform: Associate Portal (Enterprise Case Management)

Tools: Figma, Lucidchart, Confluence

Team: Product, Engineering, CAR Ops, Branch Ambassadors

Duration: ~6 weeks

My Role

As UX Designer and Design Lead, I led the end-to-end user experience across the front-office submission and back-office processing flows. This included:

Stakeholder discovery and research
Defining and mapping user flows
Creating high-fidelity Figma designs
Collaborating with other designers on reusable patterns
Supporting dev handoff and documentation

The Problem

The legacy system and manual workflows introduced the following friction:

❌ Blurry barcodes and poor-quality document uploads from branches
🧾 Manual document review with inconsistent formats and missing fields
🔁 TRIPS outages and system timeouts led to duplicate cases
📧 No automated communication between Branch and CAR
⚠️ High risk of missing SLAs due to unclear ownership and tracking

Project Overview

The BBNewAccount Migration was a high-impact UX initiative aimed at improving how Ironcrest Bank business customers provide required documentation when opening specialty deposit accounts. Previously reliant on a fragile third-party tool (TRIPS), the process suffered from inefficiencies, compliance risk, and limited transparency between Branch Ambassadors, CAR Associates, and business customers.

This initiative migrated the intake and processing flow into Associate Portal, Ironcrest Bank's internal case management platform, enhancing both the front-office (branch) and back-office (CAR) experience.

Discovery & Research

I partnered with product managers, CAR associates, branch personnel, and risk teams to uncover systemic pain points. Key findings included:

Inconsistent submission formats causing review delays
Missing validation leading to incomplete documentation
No structured rejection mechanism for re-submission
Ambiguity in case status and ownership

These insights helped inform a simplified, role-based user flow within Associate Portal.

Personas

Understanding our key users helped inform the design decisions throughout the project.

Carmine

Business Owner

"I need my business account to be set up quickly and compliantly."

A business owner who wants his newly opened deposit account fully verified and compliant by submitting the right documentation.

Problem: Carmine needs a streamlined process to submit required documentation for his new business account without delays or confusion.

Richard

Branch Ambassador

"I want to help my customers efficiently without system delays."

A Branch Ambassador who assists customers like Carmine and needs to upload and track documents required by CAR Ops.

Problem: Richard needs reliable tools to help customers submit documentation and track the progress of their applications.

Sydney

CAR Associate

"I need clear, organized documentation to make accurate decisions quickly."

A CAR Associate responsible for reviewing incoming documents and verifying business account eligibility in line with regulatory and operational standards.

Problem: Sydney needs efficient tools to review and process business account applications while maintaining compliance standards.

Key UX Contributions

Front Office Submission Flow

✅ Guided Submission

Created a smart checklist interface that adjusted based on:

Account type
Date opened
Ownership type and verification status
Clear field requirements to prevent incomplete submissions

📄 Upload Interface: Used clear success/failure states for file uploads with accessible error messaging.

Back Office Processing Flow

📌 CAR Dashboard

Designed a focused case panel with:

Submission metadata (dates, entity type, case ID)
Document status indicators
Resubmission tracker

Rejection with Clarity

🚫 Multi-select Rejection Tool

Introduced a comprehensive rejection system:

CAR associates could select multiple rejection reasons
Rejection tags were displayed as chips
Auto-populated into BA interface with clear next steps

Built with other designers as reusable components.

Design System & Accessibility

Leveraged and extended Ironcrest Bank's internal design system:

File upload states (success, error, preview)
Multi-select chip pattern used in rejection tagging
WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance across flows

Seamless Integration

Successfully migrated from legacy TRIPS system:

Eliminated system outages and duplicate cases
Improved document quality and traceability
Enhanced communication between departments

Final Workflow

Branch Ambassador submits business account via guided form

System verifies metadata → prompts for required documents

Documents uploaded via SecureDoc interface

CAR team reviews documentation on new dashboard

If rejected, tagged reasons sent back with re-upload prompt

✓

On approval, case marked complete, triggering branch notification

Workflow Screens

Front Office UI

Back Office UI - Happy Path

Back Office UI - Unhappy Path

Back Office UI - Build Branch Email

UP Build Branch Awaiting additional doc-1

Results & Impact

The BBNewAccount Migration successfully eliminated the fragile TRIPS dependency and migrated the entire process to Associate Portal. By implementing guided submission flows, structured processing workflows, and clear rejection mechanisms, we significantly improved efficiency for both Branch Ambassadors and CAR Associates while ensuring compliance and document traceability.

Metric	Outcome
🧾 Incomplete Submissions	↓ significantly due to validation checks
📁 Duplicate Cases	↓ by removing TRIPS dependency
📨 Manual Email Follow-Ups	↓ with automated triggers at Day 9 & 30
🕓 Processing Time	↓ through structured rejection/resubmit process
😀 Stakeholder Satisfaction	↑ across Branch & CAR teams
♻️ Reusable Design Patterns	Adopted across other case types

Takeaways

✓Operational UX matters—internal tools have real business impact
✓Structure reduces ambiguity: a guided submission and reason-tagging flow simplified two complex workflows
✓Reusable, system-compliant patterns empower design at scale
✓Thoughtful collaboration with product, ops, and design peers results in high adoption and trust