Established in 1952, BCU Financial Group is a leading Ukrainian-Canadian Credit Union that now serves more than 20,000 members across Ontario. It offers a full range of banking services, including personal and business accounts, loans, mortgages, financial planning, insurance, wealth management services and more. The group serves members through BCU Financial, BCU Insurance and BCU Wealth Management entities.
The customer profile in the financial services industry is evolving. Digitally savvy, digital-first consumers are gradually replacing traditional customer segments. At the same time, banks and credit unions face increasing pressure from fintechs and neobanks competing for a greater share of the customer’s wallet.
As a future-focused organization, BCU Financial embraces this shift and actively works to enhance the member experience across both physical and digital touchpoints. A key component of this strategy was strengthening their digital presence by redesigning their corporate websites—modernizing the BCU brand to better resonate with a new generation of community members.
Throughout the project, we focused on 3 key objectives:
Like many long-standing websites, BCU’s digital presence needed a fresh start. The current sites were functional but a bit outdated. Together with the BCU team, we decided to rethink the entire experience.
*In case clients bring in their own developers, we also stay involved until the final release – making sure that what we designed works and looks great.
To keep things focused, the project had 3 key stages: Research, Design, and Development. Research focused on analyzing banking experience in Canada and building a data-driven foundation for relevant customer value propositions. Design involved structuring information, creating prototypes, and crafting a consistent UI. Development covered implementation and QA to bring new vision to life.
To uncover usability issues and improve the overall experience, we ran a UX audit across the websites. UX audit helps reveal pain points, identify areas for improvement, and ultimately create a more user-friendly and effective website. Our experts reviewed all sections using a UX checklist and our original Usability Principles – developed through years of research and practical audit work.
To understand how we can differentiate BCU’s digital experience, we analyzed 10 competitors’ – highlighting both good and poor usability patterns. This helped us define what users expect when comparing financial institutions online, identify common approaches to simplify UX and uncover opportunities to make BCU’s customer experience stand out.
To guide early design decisions and refine them later with real data, we created a proto-persona – a preliminary, less detailed version of a persona based on team assumptions and initial insights.
As part of the research phase, we generated a set of hypotheses based on user interviews, business goals, and industry context. Each hypothesis addressed a specific area for improvement. This helped us validate what works in the real world and adapt best practices to fit BCU’s brand, audience, and platform structure.
Our team conducted 24 in-depth interviews with the target audience and an online survey with 200+ BCU members to examine the banking experience in Canada and gather insights for the BCU website redesign. The combined research helped us prioritize the pain points and needs of the target audience – providing a clear foundation for design and content decisions.
The design process began with information architecture. We turned research insights into a clear structure defined by key user jobs. Based on that, the existing sitemap was revised to focus on levels, sections, and user intent. We also introduced reusable components to help the BCU team scale pages easily. The final structure followed a modular layout with clean hierarchy, intuitive grouping, and flexibility for future content updates.
At this stage, we focused on bringing clarity and depth to the design. We detailed the prototype, reviewed content, and refined key messages and labels – making sure every word matched business tone. A big part of the work involved co-creating with stakeholders, especially around content: aligning meaning, reviewing copy, and filling in gaps where information was missing.
Visual discovery & Creation of the design system. This stage focused on auditing existing elements to determine what to keep, improve, or replace. Based on this, we defined key styles aligned with the BCU brand. The outcome was a comprehensive UI kit and component library – covering everything from buttons to layout patterns – forming a scalable design system for all 3 BCU platforms.
A unique part of this project was the work we did around senses and visual meaning – something we believe deserves special attention. Design isn’t just about layouts and colors. It’s also about what people feel and associate with when they see certain forms or patterns.
Circles as coins. One of the early concepts used circular shapes as a base, evoking coins and financial movement. This subtle metaphor helped create a sense of familiarity, trust, and clarity around money.
Ukrainian embroidery patterns. Since BCU has strong cultural roots in the Ukrainian-Canadian community, we explored national visual symbols. Traditional embroidery elements became part of the final design, adding depth and cultural connection to the interface.
These concepts helped shape a design that not only works, but also feels right for BCU’s members.
UX Lead: Quality and consistency in all UX research activities.
Research Lead: Research design, management, process organization.
Researchers: Interview guides, quantitative surveys, interview moderation.
UX Auditors: UX audit of client’s and competitors’ websites.
Lead Designer: UX design, prototyping, visual concept, UI direction.
UX/UI Designer: Design system, UI kit development, visual assembly.
Project Manager: communication, artifact reviews, development overview.
