Inclusive Design Framework
Embedding accessibility and vulnerability into financial product delivery
Company
Vanquis Bank
Language
English
Date
2023–2025
Project Overview
Inclusive Design
Led the creation and rollout of an Inclusive Design framework to embed customer understanding, accessibility, and vulnerability into how products are designed and delivered.
The work focused on making customer needs a consistent part of decision-making across product, digital, and operations teams.
Problem & Motivation
As the organisation evolved, there was an opportunity to improve how customer needs were considered across journeys and communications.
Some communications created friction or were difficult to understand, and design quality varied across teams. Accessibility and vulnerability were not always considered early in the process, and delivery timelines sometimes limited the ability to fully incorporate customer perspectives.
This highlighted the need for a more consistent approach to ensure clearer customer experiences, reduce support demand, and align with regulatory expectations such as Consumer Duty.
Goal
Create a practical framework that helps teams design with customer needs in mind, consistently and at scale.
Approach
Established clear principles for inclusive and customer-centred design, aligned with regulatory expectations and business priorities.
Embedded these into governance and delivery by supporting the creation of a group-wide policy and defining key checkpoints where teams reflect on customer needs and consider whether to test with customers.
Developed simple, usable tools such as customer understanding frameworks, vulnerability guidance, and empathy cards based on real scenarios. Introduced UserTesting to make customer validation faster and more accessible, enabling teams to test earlier and reduce reliance on assumptions.
Worked closely with product, design, and operations teams to support adoption, facilitate testing, and ensure the framework could be applied in real delivery contexts.
Design
The framework focused on making inclusive design practical and usable in day-to-day delivery.
Clear principles support consistent decision-making, and customer needs are considered earlier in the process. Tools are simple to apply and integrated into existing workflows rather than treated as separate activities.
Particular attention was given to vulnerability, ensuring customers can understand their options and take action with clarity and confidence. This approach also improved communications across channels, including letters, emails, and digital journeys.
Impact
Created a consistent, organisation-wide approach to inclusive design and embedded customer consideration into governance and delivery processes.
Improved clarity and consistency across customer communications, increased awareness of accessibility and vulnerability in decision-making, and enabled teams with practical tools and support.
This helped shift inclusive design from a specialist activity to a shared responsibility across teams.
