The design process is a discipline which all designers adhere to, even if it is different for various designers. The method is dependent on the form of a design project at hand. And the opposite polarity of the designing process relates to the perspective of the business, which needs to culminate in an innovative brief which is fully functional. The latter is absolutely crucial is the redesigning of the website is going to be successful (Forbes, 2013). The purpose of this paper is to discuss how I made improvements to the website of the Union National Bank of UAE at: www.unb.com and facilitated a new Union National Bank of UAE website.

I decided to carry out a review of the competition of other Dubai banks’ websites. This is because they have the same audience, and I wanted to look for any aspects that their site offered which I could implement (Cubicle, 2014). And prior to embarking on the new website, I spent a few days browsing through different websites belonging to high profile businesses selling financial products. This was in order to get an idea of their structure and general layout, attractiveness, ease of navigation, and clarity. I looked at their branding material, logos, fonts and color schemes, as well as their stock imagery and if available, made a note of the stock companies which they used. I also spent time seeing whether their primary goal, such as user registration was clearly evident and easy for potential clients to use. I followed the rudimentary five-step website design procedure as it is brief and straight forward. It incorporated: researching & brainstorming, wire framing, mock-ups, design, and development (Forbes, 2013). I also compiled a list of both the ineffectual and effective factors on the original banking site. After I identified some negatives, I looked for ways to improve them on my new website (Smarta, n.d).

The main thing that I cam up with was that they had better photographs and clarity. I felt that the original Union National Bank of UAE website was too busy as it had four sections with relatively small writing, which many people were bound to skip. I had five very simple, clear and concise headings, namely: HOME, About Us, Customers, Contact Us, and Special Offers. These are the main aspects that people looking at the website are concerned with. They do not want to waste their time navigating to find them. For example, the Contact Us section is often very hard to find, and people can spend a great deal of time searching in a maize. The original bank website does not even have this facility on its home page, and when it comes to banking matters, as people often have urgent queries or want to report a missing visa card etc., it is crucial that the Contact Us facility is clearly shown as soon as traffic arrives at the website.

I considered what the goals of the new bank website should be by strategically thinking over the content and what I needed the site to accomplish (Entrepreneur, 2015). I decided to make the site dynamic by adding first class stock images, some of which have a brief heading. These include: a photo of a man withdrawing cash outside the bank (to send the message of easy accessibility to people’s money, a photo of a student banking on line with his mobile which stated “Special offers for students” (attracting students is very important for the bank who can gain lifetime professional clients); a photo of the skyline of Dubai with a picture of a resident with the caption “Dubai is the city to invest in, “and a photo of a business woman looking at her mobile, with the caption “Instant notifications for your business transactions”. After researching, I understood that the clearer I am about the actions I want users to perform, the better and simpler my task would be. To that end I put the Log In and Sign Up facilities in the top right hand corner.