Analysis andRedesign of the Post Office Savings Bank Deposit SlipSB-103By Kenneth Mark DsouzaInformation and Interface Design,National Institute of Design, R&D Campus, Bangalore

Introduction

Analysis

The Indian post office is one of those institutions that have stood the test of time. It’s this far-flung reach and its presence in remote areas, the Indian postal service is also involved in other services such as small-savings banking and financial services. 2013 saw the Department of Posts announcing the formation of a ‘Post Bank of India’[1] to handle its banking and financial services. The Post Office has always served a number of citizens across classes and the ‘Post Bank of India’ would definitely benefit from this.

As part of my academic assignment, I decided to go ahead and analyze the Savings Bank deposit slip SB 103 with an intention to redesign it for the future ‘Post Bank of India’.

The slip is called ‘SB-103’ used for Savings Bank/Time Deposit/Monthly Income Scheme/National Savings Scheme. According to rules, it has to be in white colour. The Pay-in slip can be filled in either English or Hindi or any of the regional languages at the option of the depositor[2].

Printed in single colour, the post office savings bank slip lacks the branding of its parent ‘India Post’. Compared to most banking slips, the clutter is reduced while using most of the similar entries.I divided the issues into 5 types; Space, Grouping, Unfamiliar, Redesign and Branding. The space issues were mainly in the allotment of space to fill in certain details like account number and words in rupees. Grouping of similar items would help make reading this slip easier like in the case of the separation between the cash and the cheque sections. There were a few unfamiliar abbreviations also present like DLT as well as account types. The cash entry table needed to be better structured and the branding should be updated. Some banking slips keep the table at the back but after an interview with a bank employee, I found that having the table in the front side is helpful to the cashier. An entry for ‘Balance after transaction’ by the user is something that I found was not present in regular bank slips. This could be attributed to the constant updation of passbooks. As it was mentioned specifically in the post office manual I decided to retain it while redesigning. It was noticied that the office use part of the slip was minimal as well.

Figure 1: The existing SB 103

Iterations

Figure 2: Issues in SB 103

Figure 3: Iteration 1

After this initial analysis of the current version of the slip, I started out with some quick iterations.

The tool used for these iteration explorations was Balsamiq. The first iteration was basically an attempt at translating the slip into the digital form with some basic changes.

The major changes made were a grouping exercise for the cash and cheque sections. This iteration used only one language and the other language (hindi) would be printed on the other side so as to allow multilingual functionality.

Iteration 2 was a more radical grouping experiment. Not much else was changed in the structure of the slip. Here as in the previous iteration, the Total amount section was introduced to substitue the rupees in numbers section. This was done as a way of preventing the repetitive entry of the total amount.

These iterations would have the same dimensions of the existing slip which is 4.15x5.85 inches. Thus two such slips would fit into one a4 sized sheet. The type of printing too was maintained as the existing offset printing method used to produce the slips.

Figure 4: Iteration 2

Figure 5: Iteration 3

By Iteration 3, I was satisfied with the layout of the slip and decided to focus on other areas.One of the most interesting attempts in this iteration is to use a technique borrowed from web forms[3] where the placeholder text helps to make form filling simpler but at the same moment contributing towards minimal design. The placeholder text here would be 40% black so as to allow people to read yet write over it.

As I was working on this iteration, I realized that with the placeholder concept, I could also try using a dual language form in this one page. Studies had shown that people prefer to fill forms in english eventhough that they might do so in the language of their choice[4]. Add-ing a second language to the same side of the slip would help in assisting people and at the same time reduce printing costs. Iteration 4 would address this issue further but before that I made a basic exploration of how I could go about using both the languages in a simple way. The typeface used for this exploration was MS Mangal. English and Hindi are two official langauges and hence they are the main concern of this exploration.

Figure 7: Iteration 4

KaName/ Name

Name

कनाम

नामनाम

shironama

baseline

The latin and the devanagari typefaces do not sit on the same baseline, though most other indian languages do sit on the same baseline. So to use them as placeholders in the form fields would be quite a challenge.

6(a) 6(b) 6(c)

From this understanding I decided to try different versions of placing the two language sample text next to each other. I took something generic field like name because it would be present in almost every form. 6(a) was how the current version of the form used the two languages. This was sort of a compromise solution which was forcing the devanagari letters to sit on a different plane. If the user chose to write in devanagari, then the slight dotted baseline would cut many of the matras. 6(b) was one way of looking it where therer would be two lines for each field the top would aid the devanagari user and the bottom the latin user. However this had issues related to grouping. There was a possibility that the user could confuse which line would represent which field. This was why I decided to arrange the two languages in the way described by 6(c). This seemed to me like an ideal approach to solving the issues faced.

I decided to use this while putting together Iteration 4. Unfortunately I was not able to use the devanagari in the balsamiq wireframe.

I decided to translate this wireframe to a visual mockup stage. Choices had to be made on which fields could work as placeholders and which needed to be field labels. This choice was made on the basis of whether a proper statement could be constructed if certain labels were made placeholders. After a bit of trial and error, I was able to come to a consensus on the final choice of placeholders and labels.

Final Design

Below is a comparison of how the old and the new slip look with respect to each other.

Figure 7: Final version

Figure 8: Comparison of existing and redesigned form

Conclusion and Future work

References

This redesign was an attempt at revamping the image of the Post Office Savings bank with view of their current intention to start the ‘Post Bank of India’. The logos used in the current iteration could then be replaced by the logo designed for the ‘Post Bank of India’. The date format could also have a guidance format which is missing in the current form because I was unable to locate the format required. This form does need to be user tested before it can declared as final. This is what I shall be working on next.

1. Press Release. Press Information Bureau , Government of India. 14 August 2013. <http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=98263>2. Page 20. Post Office Savings Bank Manual Volume I. < http://www.indiapost.gov.in/Pdf/Manuals/POSB_Manual_Vol-I.pdf >3. An Extensive Guide To Web Form Usability. < http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2011/11/08/extensive-guide-web-form-usability/ >4. Antonella De Angeli, Uday Athavankar et al. Introducing ATMs in India: a contextual in-quiry. <http://dspace.library.iitb.ac.in/jspui/bitstream/10054/1342/1/5644.pdf>