First Merchants Bank

First Merchants was rapidly modernizing its digital ecosystem, but customer experiences, banker tools, and internal processes had evolved independently. My role was to help establish UX as a strategic function while creating alignment across web, mobile, branch, and operational teams.

Role: Senior UX Designer, AVP
Year: 2022-2025
Product Types: Consumer and commercial digital, internal banker tools, marketing & email

At a Glance

  • 3 years at First Merchants Bank

  • First UX hire for many initiatives

  • Web, mobile, and banker-facing tools

  • 40% increase in account opening completion

  • Cross-functional leadership across product, engineering, compliance, marketing, and operations

THE CHALLENGE

TOOLS USED: EXPERIENCE MAPPING, COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS, AFFINITY MAPPING, WORKSHOPS

When I joined First Merchants Bank, the organization was accelerating its digital transformation, but customer experiences, banker-facing tools, and internal processes had evolved independently over time. Teams were solving problems within their own channels, making it difficult to understand how decisions impacted the broader customer journey.

As one of the organization's early UX hires, my role extended beyond designing individual products. I partnered with stakeholders across the business to establish UX practices, align teams around shared customer needs, and create a strategic foundation for future digital experiences across web, mobile, and branch operations.

Educating stakeholders on how UX can make an impact was a key part of my role. The above diagram was intended to help articulate what we do and how we do it.

DISCOVERY & ALIGNMENT

TOOLS USED: STAKEHOKLDER INTERVIEWS, EXPERIENCE AUDITS, WORKSHOPS, JOURNEY MAPPING, AFFINITY MAPPING

Key Findings

  • Customer experiences varied significantly across channels

  • Teams lacked a shared view of the end-to-end journey

  • Similar problems were being solved independently across departments

  • UX involvement often occurred too late in the process

One of the most valuable outcomes was creating a shared view of the customer and employee experience. By bringing together teams that rarely worked closely with one another, we were able to identify common challenges, establish alignment, and create momentum around customer-centered decision making.

We dedicated multiple sessions to design workshops with executive leaders, aiming to not only understand their perspectives on solving our big problems but also to impart the principles of design thinking through active engagement. The success of these sessions is evident in executives actively seeking similar workshops for addressing other issues afterward.

DESIGN STRATEGY

TOOLS USED: ECOSYSTEM MAPPING, SERVICE BLUEPRINTS, PROCESS MAPS, STRATEGY WORKSHOPS, PRIORITIZATION FRAMEWORKS

To align teams around a shared vision, I created cross-channel journey maps, service blueprints, and operating models that visualized how customer experiences connected across web, mobile, branch, and internal systems.

These artifacts helped move UX from an emerging practice toward an integrated strategic function by creating shared frameworks, stakeholder alignment, and repeatable design processes.

The above image is based of Nielson Norman group’s established stages, and was used for educational purposes at First Merchants Bank.

The process and activities that accompany the Customer Experience (CX) and User Experience (UX) process

BANKER-FACING TOOLS

TOOLS USED: WORKFLOW ANAYLSIS, CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY, INTERVIEWS, WIREFRAMING, PROTOTYPING, USABILITY TESTING

Tellers, bankers, and managers interacted with these tools every day, yet many workflows were inefficient, inconsistent, and difficult to learn. Through research, workflow analysis, and close collaboration with frontline employees, we identified opportunities to simplify complex processes and reduce friction in critical tasks.

Challenges

  • Legacy workflows and therefore workarounds had accumulated over many years

  • Processes were difficult to learn and inconsistent across teams

  • Internal tools received significantly less UX investment than customer-facing products

What We Did

  • Conducted workflow analysis with frontline employees

  • Mapped complex operational processes

  • Identified opportunities to reduce friction and simplify tasks

Results

  • Reduced complexity in critical workflows

  • Created consistency across internal tools

  • Improved efficiency for frontline employees

  • Established patterns reused in future projects


Rather than treating these systems as isolated tools, we looked at how they fit within the broader service ecosystem and customer journey. Improvements to internal experiences ultimately supported better customer experiences as well.

ACCOUNT OPENING & DIGITAL EXPERIENCES

TOOLS USED: USER FLOWS, USABILITY TESTING, DESIGN SYSTEMS, CROSS-FUNCTIONAL COLLABORATION, ANNOTATED SPECS

Account opening represented one of the bank's most important customer acquisition channels, yet the experience varied significantly across products and platforms. Customers often encountered inconsistent flows, duplicated steps, and unclear expectations throughout the process.

Goals

  • Increase completion rates

  • Reduce abandonment

  • Create consistency across channels

  • Establish reusable patterns for future experiences

Contributions

  • Redesigned onboarding flows across web and mobile

  • Simplified complex compliance requirements

  • Improved clarity and usability throughout the journey

  • Partnered with business, engineering, and compliance teams

Result

+40% increase in online account opening completion rates

IMPACT

  • Helped establish UX as a strategic function within the organization

  • Created cross-channel experience frameworks used by multiple teams

  • Improved collaboration between product, operations, marketing, and branch stakeholders

  • Redesigned customer-facing and internal banking experiences

  • Increased online account opening completion rates by 40%

  • Established reusable patterns and processes that continued beyond the project

The result of my time was not a single product launch, but a stronger foundation for future digital experiences across the bank.