Battling the big beast that is banking
July 2022 – October 2023
I joined the first direct (intentionally lowercase) team back in July 2022, as a UX Writer on a three-month HSBC contractor basis. I hadn’t freelanced, nor worked for a major corporation before, at least in the traditional sense, so thought it was a good opportunity to try my hand at both.
I eventually transitioned into a permanent position with a shiny new title of Lead Digital Copywriter, and departed in Winter 2023 for new pastures.
It also appears I’ve resonated with first direct so much that I’ve even replicated their branding for my portfolio.
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Project: Website redesign
One of the major projects I’m very proud to have worked on is our completely redesigned website, with words by yours truly throughout.
Our old site was really showing its age, and reflected the cold, stale and corporate brand of traditional banking. But with our wall-to-wall redesign our site encapsulates the ‘digital first’ direction of fd, something that’s been at the forefront of innovation and technology since the 90s.
With a cleaner, no-frills design reflective of the service we offer customers, our content has been refined throughout and modernised with support from contemporary imagery, fluid presentation and dynamic scrolling.
I was involved from ideation through to inception on this project, and worked closely with Designers, Product Managers, Digital and Growth Leads, and various members of the brand and marketing team. A collaborative effort amongst all involved, I took ownership of the content and supported on UX and design.
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Project: First time buyer’s mobile app
Another substantial project I worked on was our dedicated mobile application for first time home buyers. Separate from the first direct app, this standalone service would help customers through the house buying journey. It shows all the steps and stages of the process, displayed in the form of a digital checklist with succinct, easy-to-understand pointers and context.
Having recently bought a flat and experienced the process myself, I was easily able to put myself in the shoes of the user. I needed to simplify a long, lengthy legal process into digestible, jargon-free chunks of copy that anybody could pick up and understand.
The demo above showcases some of the app’s features and functionality, with my copy and content throughout. I also worked closely with our Product Designers and Product Managers on the UX, the UI, and the best ways to present and communicate the content.
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Project: Cookies
As with all things banking and finance, writing legally and to code is perhaps the most important aspect of my job. And cookies are of course an essential part of that.
A fabled project amongst the office that’s long-been required, in short we needed to do what every website or app already does: tell users about cookies, and ask them if they’re cool with them.
Alongside working to strict legal constraints, we also needed to work closer than usual with our friends at HSBC, the owners of first direct.
This meant we had to follow an existing, HSBC-designed journey as closely as possible, while tweaking and adjusting to meet our brand and users’ needs.
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Project: International payments journey
Another important project I was specifically brought in for, was the launch of our new international payments feature. As the name would suggest, this brand new journey would allow users to send money to bank accounts across the world.
Perhaps the biggest project by investment and longevity, I worked closely with the Product Managers, Designers and Digital Leads from across both Payments and Legal and Compliance. The finished product shown above was devised across intense sprints of back-to-back meetings and short, sharp collaborative sessions. This meant we could work together on the journey live and in real-time, with a much more agile approach than communicating with lots of back and forths.
Joe West Stevens 