Favourite Tiles Evolution Discovery
ROLE
RESULTS
78 CommBank App Tracker score for home screen customisation, up from 74 baseline
2 immediate favourite tile experience changes shipped
100+ designer and stakeholder awareness
PROBLEM
CommBank's favourite tiles on the CommBank app had not been updated since App 4, several major versions prior. With users' financial needs growing in complexity and the unchanged customisation experience represented both a gap in customer value and a missed opportunity for the business.
Establishing current state value and purpose
Favourite tiles are persistent home screen modules that enable users to access contextual financial information at a glance — supporting decision-making, task completion, and account monitoring without requiring navigation deeper into the app.
I conducted a synthesis across digital analytics, 5 prior research reports, 6 CommBank App Tracker (CAT) reports and 13 home screen value proposition analyses which built the foundations for this discovery.
The data indicated that users were adding tiles at twice the rate they were removing them, suggesting genuine interest in favourite tiles, however once added, engagement remained low — attributed to limited discoverability, insufficient dynamism in tile content, and a lack of alignment between available tiles and evolving customer needs. CommBank App Tracker reports confirmed that while users valued home screen customisation in principle, their satisfaction with the current experience was constrained by these gaps.
Strategic framework and design direction
Following this analysis, I created a structured design matrix to better map favourite tiles across dimensions of key outcomes for users and the business. Dimensions of dynamism, glanceability, and customisability — identified a clear strategic direction. Tiles with the highest clickthrough rates shared consistent characteristics: they were relevant and timely, addressed core banking needs directly, required minimal onboarding, and surfaced insights without placing discovery pressure on the user.
I conducted a competitive analysis across 15+ financial apps and informed design principles for tile layout and content hierarchy.
Key takeaways
Ground recommendations in data
Combining quantitative analytics with qualitative research and design heuristics enabled well-reasoned recommendations without relying on assumptions about user behaviour.Align stakeholders early and continuously
Engaging SMEs and designers throughout the process — rather than at defined review gates — produced more coherent outcomes and built shared ownership of the direction.Validate to move from recommendations to guidelines
While heuristic and secondary research provided a strong foundation, formal usability testing remains the critical next step to substantiate the design direction and establish reusable guidelines for the tile system.
