Bank of Ireland Mortgages Website Usability

As part of an extensive re-development of the Bank of Ireland Mortgages website, Frontend were contracted to evaluate the overall usability of the site and where appropriate, to make recommendations for design and usability improvements.
Bank of Ireland provides mortgage services to Irish and international customers. Through the Bank of Ireland Group Website, customers can see extensive information on BOI mortgages and apply online for Approval in Principle (AIP).

The Project
The Bank of Ireland mortgage site is comprehensive in functionality and provides extensive information for a wide range of user profiles. The site also offers useful functionality for calculating various aspects of a mortgage and the related costs.

The evaluation was carried out as a series of interviews with potential end users, followed by a detailed usability evaluation of the Mortgages section on the Bank of Ireland Website

The Results
The evaluation helped to identify ways in which the content and architecture of the site could be re-structured to cater for all of the target user profiles - First time buyers, equity release customers, home improvers, customers switching lenders, investors etc.

As a result of the user interviews and content evaluation, several additional sections such as Step-by-step guides for releasing equity, or investing in property to rent and product/rates tables were suggested. In order to provide intuitive navigation to these subsections, design concepts for the main navigation were developed.

The Evaluation Report included proposed re-designs for the Mortgage Calculators. These would provide the functions required by all customer profiles, consolidated into four calculator pages:

• What is the maximum I can borrow? 
• How much will my repayments be? 
• What are my costs likely to be? 
• How much can I afford to pay each month?

To find out more about our experience and services, contact us.