Citizens Financial Group is about 18 months into an effort to put user experience design at the heart of the bank’s digital products and services. The bank’s Green Pixel Studios, a team of about 30 UX designers, data analysts and visual designers and artists spread out over three locations, is currently playing an integral role in the re-platforming of Citizens’ mobile app.

At the helm of this team is Lamont Young, head of digital for Citizens, who has been with the bank for six years. He helped the bank, which has a market capitalization of about $16.9 billion, build out its e-commerce practice for about three years before assuming his current role, in which he is responsible for the bank’s overall digital strategy and its investments in digital, as well as the management of platforms across the consumer division.

In an interview with Bank Innovation, Young discussed the genesis and mandate for Green Pixel Studios, its role in the revamp of the bank’s mobile app, and what technologies he’s watching closely. An edited version of his conversation with Bank Innovation follows.

BI: What is Green Pixel Studios? Is it a place or is it a state of mind?

Young: I think it’s a little bit of both. My UX team would tell you it’s absolutely a state of mind, but Green Pixel Studios is actually our internal UX practice. About a year and a half ago, we made a decision as a bank to say we really wanted to institute user-centered design across Citizens. It all stems from this notion that if we put the user at the heart of everything that we do, and if we develop solutions, services and products that really do meet the core needs of the consumer, we’re going to deliver a better product and drive customer loyalty over time. More importantly, we’re going to reduce costs because we’re only going to be developing things in which clients find real value.

Part of this journey was figuring out how we would develop a practice that would be internal to the bank, but that would also be distinctive enough to help us recruit top talent because it’s a very, very competitive landscape. We actually thought of the moniker Green Pixel Studios both as a way to brand our practice, but also as a major recruiting tool. We think it’s a differentiator for us because we are driving a program that really has tentacles that stretch across the bank and it reflects the way in which all of our business lines have begun thinking in terms of delivering products and services — with the user at the front of mind.

BI: How do you get from idea creation to implementation?

Young: We’re in the midst of re-platforming our mobile app, and, so, the process through which our team works would start off with second-party research. This means we look at the competitive landscape of banks and financial institutions and ask, ‘What are some of the best practices that we see out in the marketplace from some of the top designers of applications?’ Obviously, we focus on apps that are rated four-plus stars. This research will help us build our first set of flat-files and those flat-files will ultimately become a working prototype that we would then put in front of clients.

Once we have a working prototype, that prototype would then be put in front of a virtual usability team, which is a 150,000-user virtually opted-in usability panel. That panel can be cut by a multitude of demographic segments, so we can say, for example, “Hey, we want to look at males under 40 who live in these geographic areas.” We could literally reach out to this group and test whatever interface we want to develop in front of that demographic. And, so, part of what we are doing for the mobile app is we are cutting that panel by segment and asking how millennials and Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, and so on, are reacting to our build. This gives us a good cross-section of feedback on what we’re developing and that research then goes to further refine the prototype we build out.

At this point, we will have our UX team do an in-lab session, which is exactly what it sounds like. We’re actually sitting there and doing a focus group where we’re taking real individual users through an actual working prototype. If it’s a mobile app, then it would be on the phone. If it’s a desktop platform, we’ll do it on the computers. But, here, we’re not only able to get user feedback from them, but we also get to watch their click movements, and we get to watch how their eyes navigate around on the interface, and all of these things go into helping us refine the design. It’s really this rich resource and gives us the ability to say, “You know what, this particular feature or function actually works,” or, “We need to go back and refine this.” And we usually do validation of those in-lab results, too, once we actually go live with it.

That all gives us our initial build, but then we do consistent research, maybe on a monthly basis or quarterly basis, depending on what it is, to ensure that what we saw and heard is exactly what customers want. This is designing backed by soluble quantitative and qualitative research, but more importantly, it’s continuous. It’s not like we put something into development and forget about it. We put something into development, we see how customers react to it, and we continuously iterate on it.

Also see: Citizens Access Targeting ‘Optimizers’ to Grow Deposits Beyond the Bank’s Footprint

BI: What are the big challenges and opportunities for Citizens Bank when it comes to digital banking?

Young: I think the opportunities are endless, just because of the mere fact we’re large enough where we can do a lot of things ourselves. For instance, we’ve added almost 35 new colleagues this year who are engineers and developers, who are writing code and writing software that will help us with our next-generation mobile app. But we’re also large enough where we see opportunities for partnerships with fintechs. We’re not going to reinvent the wheel. What we need to develop at the core, we can, but we’re also smart enough to understand that where we need to partner, we can.

I won’t spend the type of money on mobile innovation as, let’s say, a Bank of America or Wells Fargo might. What we will do is really understand our segments, execute the user-centered design, and make sure we are focused on solutions that fit the needs of those who do business with us, rather than trying to be all things to all people.

BI: What technologies have you most excited?

Young: From an artificial intelligence perspective, I’m excited about the efficiency gains that we can make, certainly in the back office, but also the efficiency gains that we can make in how we reach out to and service clients. AI has the potential to be game-changing in terms of our ability to provide a differentiated experience to clients.

Voice banking is something I fundamentally believe can also be a game-changer. When I look at the way in which customers today interact with their favorite devices, whether they’re using Siri on their phone, or using Google Home, or Amazon’s Alexa, or any of these sorts of devices, I think consumers are increasingly getting more comfortable with having their voice be that thing that powers certain aspects of their life.

I can just imagine a world where, at the end of the day, your mobile app won’t matter as much as the APIs that are connecting with all your devices, so there’s this whole notion of the internet of things. For example, you can tell your car, ‘Hey, drop me off at the Citizens branch and, oh, by the way, punch in my code so that when I walk into the branch I can get my $40 in cash.’ Or, you can say to your refrigerator, ‘Hey, what are my groceries? And, oh, by the way, bill those groceries to my Citizens Bank card.’ To me, I really do feel like that is something we’ll see the advent of over the next couple of years.