Mapping the real journey into SIB banking
From walking into branches and opening real accounts, to redesigning the path from “I want a bank account” to a fully active Sharjah Islamic Bank mobile app — wireframed, tested, and designed on brand.
Client
Sharjah Islamic Bank
Industry
Islamic Banking
Region
UAE · Sharjah
Scope
Research + UX/UI
A heritage Islamic bank, rethinking its first impression
Sharjah Islamic Bank (SIB) is one of the UAE's established Sharia-compliant banks, serving retail and business customers across personal banking, business banking, and wealth products — all structured around Islamic finance principles.
Like most legacy banks, SIB's strongest relationship moment — opening a new account and activating mobile banking — was also its most fragmented. The brief was simple to state and hard to solve: understand exactly what a new customer experiences today, across every type of account, and design what it should feel like instead.
We didn't survey people. We became the customer.
Four personas, four account types, one rule: every journey had to be lived end-to-end — from walking into a branch to receiving the debit card at home.
Salaried Expat
First-time UAE resident, payroll account
Current AccountSmall Business Owner
Sole establishment, trade license holder
Business AccountUniversity Student
First bank account, parent co-signer
Savings AccountHigh Net-Worth Resident
Existing UAE bank relationships, seeking premium tier
Wadiah / Premium
Nobody at the bank had taken this exact walk
Internally, SIB's account opening and app activation flow was understood in pieces — branch teams knew the in-person process, the digital team knew the app, but no one held the full, end-to-end picture of what a real customer actually goes through, or how that compared to what competitor banks were offering.
No end-to-end visibility
The journey from application to an active mobile banking app spans branch, back-office processing, courier delivery, and digital activation — four separate teams, with no single owner of the customer's experience across all of it.
Unclear competitive position
SIB had no first-hand benchmark of how its onboarding speed, documentation requirements, and app activation flow compared to other UAE banks — only assumptions, anecdotes, and customer complaints.
One journey for every persona
The same onboarding flow was being used for a salaried expat, a business owner, and a student — despite each having different documents, expectations, and points where they were most likely to drop off.
From field research to a ready-to-build UI
The engagement covered the full distance between “what's happening today” and “what should happen instead” — research, journey design, wireframing, and final UI, all grounded in first-hand evidence and delivered against SIB's brand guidelines.
On-Ground Competitor Research
Physically opened accounts across six UAE banks, across four personas and account types, documenting every step from branch visit to debit card delivery and first app login.
Current-State Journey Mapping
Mapped SIB's existing account opening and app activation journey end-to-end, flagging every drop-off point, redundant document request, and waiting period.
Gap & Opportunity Analysis
Compared SIB's journey against the competitor benchmark to identify where SIB was losing time, customers, or trust — and where it had an opportunity to lead.
Persona-Based Journey Design
Designed a proposed journey for each persona and account type — recognising that a student opening a first savings account needs a different path than a business owner opening a trade account.
End-to-End Wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes covering the full proposed flow — application, document upload, status tracking, account activation, and first-time mobile app setup.
High-Fidelity UI on Brand Guide
Final UI screens for the new onboarding and activation flow, built strictly within SIB's existing brand guidelines — typography, colour, iconography, and tone of voice.
Field research first, design grounded in reality
Every design decision traced back to something we'd personally experienced or measured — not assumed. The process moved from raw field data to a polished, brand-accurate UI in five structured phases.
Persona & Account-Type Definition
Working with SIB's team, we defined the four customer personas most representative of new account holders, and matched each to the account types most relevant to them — current, savings, business, and premium Wadiah accounts.
On-Ground Mystery Shopping
Our researchers physically opened accounts as each persona — at SIB and at five competitor banks — documenting every interaction: branch wait times, staff scripts, document requests, forms, and the wait for the welcome letter, debit card, and app credentials to arrive.
Journey Mapping & Gap Analysis
All field data was consolidated into current-state journey maps per persona, with every step timed and every friction point logged. These were then benchmarked against the competitor journeys to identify exactly where SIB was losing time or trust relative to the market.
Proposed Journey & Wireframes
We designed a new end-to-end journey for SIB — restructuring the sequence of steps, reducing duplicate data entry, and introducing self-serve checkpoints — then translated it into low-fidelity wireframes covering application, document upload, status tracking, and app activation.
UI Design on SIB Brand Guide
Wireframes were developed into final, high-fidelity UI screens — applying SIB's existing typography, colour palette, iconography, and tone of voice, so the new journey felt like a natural evolution of the SIB brand rather than a foreign redesign.
A journey SIB could see, measure, and build
SIB walked away with more than a redesign concept — a fully evidenced, persona-specific account opening and activation journey, benchmarked against the market, and translated into wireframes and on-brand UI ready to brief to their development team.
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