I'm dumbfounded at how the biggest bank in the country can have such a poorly designed app -- and to have kept it that way for years.
It really is comically bad! Pixelated icons, low resolution pictures and ads everywhere, web UI trying to imitate native UI elements (i.e. switches) and just plain poor navigation that breaks every user interface guideline in the book! Since the release of the first retina iPhone, it's been updated several times with full number updates and it is still not retina! Not even the icon.
After banking with TD for 15 years, and having given it a last ditch effort to speak with senior executives about their app, I realized that TD simply does not understand mobile banking. I closed by personal and business accounts and have moved to Scotiabank.
This is the perfect example of an IT department making -- not designing -- an app. Technically it works, but the user experience is so poor because the top executives havent figured out that the user experience is what will determine which banks people choose going forward.
Here's my review:
TD,
In this era of Internet banking, many -- if not most -- of your customers never see the inside of a branch, they never see a teller. Your website and your mobile app is how customers interact with their bank. This embarrassingly bad web portal disguised as an app is equivalent to a severely outdated bank branch with poorly chosen furniture, confusing tellers who make you jump through hoops to get to the services you need , all the while waving large ads advertising other unrelated bank services in your face as you try to complete a transaction.
TD's app continues to fail at Apple's Human Interface Guidelines:
- Displaying a full keyboard to input an amount field. What do you want me to write in a number field? Bring up the numpad instead. That's what it's for.
- The app resolution is still designed for devices that have been obsolete since before even TD's first app was released. It was already behind then! You updated the icon (yet still not full retina resolution) but couldn't bother with the rest of the app. Just plain lazy.
- This is still a website in disguise. Attempts at making it feel like a native app fall flat. That "remember card" sliding button doesn't feel right because it's a cheap web version of the iPhone UI.
- TD (Canada) is not an appropriate app title. TD was just fine. Put (Canada) in the app description, not the title.
With all the resources available to TD, they can't match the user friendliness and design integrity of apps from other banks. That's disconcerting. RBC, CIBC and Scotiabank have all released beautifully designed native apps. Heck, 14 year olds in their bedrooms have designed better looking, intuitive and functional apps than TD.
This all portrays an aging corporate culture at TD unable or unwilling to innovate and stay on the cutting edge of technology.
App savvy mobile users are your future customers TD. With a can't-be-bothered effort like demonstrated with this app, you won't compete... and that has me worried where I'm keeping my money.
TD app 4.0:
Full redesign from zero. Scrap this app and build a new one. Fire whoever is running your mobile banking initiative because their lack of vision and knowledge of current mobile platforms is going to cost you an entire new generation of customers.
Build a native app with all the iPhone UI subtleties that make it feel like part of the phone. Native buttons, sliders, numpads where appropriate and UI animations.
All other graphics should be kept to a minimum. This is an app, not a website. Whatever extra graphics that you must use, ensure that they're at retina resolution.
Innovate! Chase mobile introduced mobile deposits! That's right, deposit a cheque from your phone by photographing the cheque. The app translates the photo into readable data, authorizes it and deposits the amount in your account. Now that is innovative!
At minimum, introduce money management tools such as push notifications when your balance falls below a pre-determined amount, setting budgets for different expense categories with notices if you go over, graphs for income vs expenses, and so many other ideas that a bank should offer to stay ahead in customer satisfaction.
Implement email INTERAC transfers correctly. It's useless if you still need to go on a computer to add a payee. At that point you might as well perform the whole money transfer there.
You have a lot of work ahead of you and I really hope that this 2.1 update was a stop gap for a brand new TD app that you should have started working on many months ago.
It really is comically bad! Pixelated icons, low resolution pictures and ads everywhere, web UI trying to imitate native UI elements (i.e. switches) and just plain poor navigation that breaks every user interface guideline in the book! Since the release of the first retina iPhone, it's been updated several times with full number updates and it is still not retina! Not even the icon.
After banking with TD for 15 years, and having given it a last ditch effort to speak with senior executives about their app, I realized that TD simply does not understand mobile banking. I closed by personal and business accounts and have moved to Scotiabank.
This is the perfect example of an IT department making -- not designing -- an app. Technically it works, but the user experience is so poor because the top executives havent figured out that the user experience is what will determine which banks people choose going forward.
Here's my review:
TD,
In this era of Internet banking, many -- if not most -- of your customers never see the inside of a branch, they never see a teller. Your website and your mobile app is how customers interact with their bank. This embarrassingly bad web portal disguised as an app is equivalent to a severely outdated bank branch with poorly chosen furniture, confusing tellers who make you jump through hoops to get to the services you need , all the while waving large ads advertising other unrelated bank services in your face as you try to complete a transaction.
TD's app continues to fail at Apple's Human Interface Guidelines:
- Displaying a full keyboard to input an amount field. What do you want me to write in a number field? Bring up the numpad instead. That's what it's for.
- The app resolution is still designed for devices that have been obsolete since before even TD's first app was released. It was already behind then! You updated the icon (yet still not full retina resolution) but couldn't bother with the rest of the app. Just plain lazy.
- This is still a website in disguise. Attempts at making it feel like a native app fall flat. That "remember card" sliding button doesn't feel right because it's a cheap web version of the iPhone UI.
- TD (Canada) is not an appropriate app title. TD was just fine. Put (Canada) in the app description, not the title.
With all the resources available to TD, they can't match the user friendliness and design integrity of apps from other banks. That's disconcerting. RBC, CIBC and Scotiabank have all released beautifully designed native apps. Heck, 14 year olds in their bedrooms have designed better looking, intuitive and functional apps than TD.
This all portrays an aging corporate culture at TD unable or unwilling to innovate and stay on the cutting edge of technology.
App savvy mobile users are your future customers TD. With a can't-be-bothered effort like demonstrated with this app, you won't compete... and that has me worried where I'm keeping my money.
TD app 4.0:
Full redesign from zero. Scrap this app and build a new one. Fire whoever is running your mobile banking initiative because their lack of vision and knowledge of current mobile platforms is going to cost you an entire new generation of customers.
Build a native app with all the iPhone UI subtleties that make it feel like part of the phone. Native buttons, sliders, numpads where appropriate and UI animations.
All other graphics should be kept to a minimum. This is an app, not a website. Whatever extra graphics that you must use, ensure that they're at retina resolution.
Innovate! Chase mobile introduced mobile deposits! That's right, deposit a cheque from your phone by photographing the cheque. The app translates the photo into readable data, authorizes it and deposits the amount in your account. Now that is innovative!
At minimum, introduce money management tools such as push notifications when your balance falls below a pre-determined amount, setting budgets for different expense categories with notices if you go over, graphs for income vs expenses, and so many other ideas that a bank should offer to stay ahead in customer satisfaction.
Implement email INTERAC transfers correctly. It's useless if you still need to go on a computer to add a payee. At that point you might as well perform the whole money transfer there.
You have a lot of work ahead of you and I really hope that this 2.1 update was a stop gap for a brand new TD app that you should have started working on many months ago.
