The Connector Podcast - DFS 2022 - Ergomania

Join the conversation with Dr. Andras Rung from Ergomania. He talks about the importance of UX/UI at FinTechs and Banks during the Digital Finance Summit 2022 in Brussels organised and sponsored by Fintech Belgium. 

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Koen Vanderhoydonk
koen.vanderhoydonk@jointheconnector.com

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Transcript

Sponsor  0:23  
FinTech, Belgium, the digital finance Association by and for fintechs. Live from the digital finance summit 2022.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  0:32  
A warm welcome to everyone to our podcast channel here at the Digital finance summit in Brussels. And we not only have Belgian people around today, but we also have people from abroad and therefore I'm very pleased, very happy to have undress in front of me coming all the way from Hungary. Can you maybe introduce yourself a little bit undress?

Dr Andras Rung  0:54  
Yes. Hi, Koen, and hi, everybody. Yeah, I'm the founder and CEO of Ergomania digital product design. We are a UX agency providing UX UI and service design services for fintechs. And banks and financial institutions. And we are operating for 10 years all over Europe, even on overseas market like us, Singapore, Brazil, Senegal.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  1:19  
Cool. So very, very international. So what do you like about the Belgian market?

Dr Andras Rung  1:25  
I like in the Virgin market, that it's very open and international. So like, it's a kind of mixture of different languages and cultures, and it makes it more flexible and more open for new solutions. And the people are very curious. And I like it, what is that they are organized, they have a plan, they know how to proceed, but they keep the flexibility. So if the context or the situation changes, they can adapt, and they can go on. I like that. And for this reason, it's very easy to work with Belgian people.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  2:02  
And that's why your regular visitor to the FinTech Belgian community. Absolutely. That's one of the and that's a real pleasure undress. It's a real pleasure. You say that UX, and UI is different. And we talked about it, by coincidence yesterday evening, but maybe you can, can you explain to the audience, what is the difference? So once and for all, everyone knows, what is the difference?

Dr Andras Rung  2:27  
Yes, it's very easy to mix up the two things because they are connected. And traditionally, both of the professions were covered by the same people usually kind of designers nowadays also, we have product designers who are covering both of the professions, more on the UX side, but dealing with UI as well, UX design, mostly focusing on the structure and functional logic of applications and software. So basically, it I could say, as an example, that it's something like what an architect is doing in the process of building an office building. So understanding the users understanding the business needs, developing the flows and making high level structural plans for the for the application or the software. And also testing that applications that whether they meet the user expectations, and and the business aspects also was pretty important. UI is more focusing on that to create branding for that solutions, or update the branding. And to make those solutions up to date and meeting the expectation visual expectations of the user. So basic, like UX is focusing on streamlined, painless, working mannerisms and giving pleasure in the process. Meanwhile, UI is generating trust. So it makes the application and solution trustful

Koen Vanderhoydonk  3:58  
or recognizable to the brand. Yes, awesome. Yeah. All right. Well, super interesting. But what strikes me is that, well, it's nice that you have a UX UI agency but specialized in FinTech and finance and banking. Are we done so special?

Dr Andras Rung  4:16  
Yes, I think most of the cases we are applying similar methodologies. So if you are developing ecommerce website or technical telecommunications solution, we're using usually the same methods but with different proportions. Of course, there are some edge cases if you are designing a game, you use a little bit different methodologies than then for a FinTech solution. But I think what is important the knowledge of the industry, the standards, the best practices, the the logic behind so I think it speeds up really, development of FinTech solutions if you if you really know how those things are working. So if you have a crypto project, you should not start from the Hey guys, there's something called blockchain. It's so cool and works like this and this and this. And they are 600 questions and they always make mistakes. If you have a specialized team, they don't ask these questions and they focus on to make your solution the best and not just kind of average and understanding your needs. So that's the difference.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  5:22  
Well, well, you just came in into our little room here. And there was a very nice book that you brought. Can you explain a bit more about the book itself? Because I think that's where you get the mustard from, right. That's where you get the knowledge from?

Dr Andras Rung  5:37  
Yes. I think in all cases, like every company is working on to make some profit, that they could work further and pay their employees and founders and blah, blah. But we find it very important to give back to the community where we feel that we belong. So we think that if you want to belong to the FinTech community, you have to give not just read projects, but knowledge and share information and motivate those people. And we are doing several activities. So we have memberships in different FinTech associations. We are organizing meetups around design and fintech. But our latest initiative was this book. And this book was basically created to share the views of 50 FinTech leaders and bankers about the FinTech scene of Europe from 15 countries. And we think that if we give this book to the community, we had them to talk with each other, understand each other, and leaders of different FinTech companies to cooperate in different countries as well. So we like, we would like to have those people to have a kind of higher level of cooperation, not just within countries, but overarching.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  7:00  
I heard you talking just a few minutes ago with somebody from the Belgium industry. And I liked your introduction, I was not listening, no GDPR issues. But I was overhearing and you said, What is nice about the book is that it's been divided into countries. And I liked that idea that you said, if you go to a conference, or you need people, you meet people from another country, you can basically get a snapshot of what's happening.

Dr Andras Rung  7:26  
Yes, exactly, I think. So we are not covering all the European countries, but 50 We are covering starting from Spain to will Garia to Norway, Switzerland, and so on. I could endlessly repeat those. But it's really like from each country, we have three interviews. And interview participants are usually kind of randomly selected from the industry. So some of them are national bankers, bankers, design leaders, reading small or very successful fintech. So they give like kind of snapshot what's happening around them. And also they are mentioning other companies. So they are not just talking about their own companies, but they are sharing their views about their own country. And also, they are mentioning other interesting companies or associations from their old countries. So like, if you are covering let's say, Spain, you get information about 1520 other companies as well.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  8:30  
And undress to see any specific trends changes differences between different nations in a small Europe.

Dr Andras Rung  8:39  
Yeah, I think the countries are still quite different. So I think it has like, kind of cultural differences. There are some surprising similarities in some cases. So for example, I think the attitude towards winter is more similar between Polish and Spanish people than for example, Polish and Czech people who are culturally closer because like Spanish people and Polish people, they are very ambitious. They have like huge plans. They really want to go international, they want to make something big. Meanwhile, check fintax them focusing more on crafting, making the solutions perfect. And of course, they are happy to extend to other countries but they are really focusing first on their own country or for example, Germany has a specialty that like it's a big country, financially strong country. So they are relatively happy at home. So so if they create the solution, of course they want to go to international conquer other markets as well. But if it works in Germany, that's fine. Meanwhile, it's not true for example, for a Bulgarian startup.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  9:56  
So it's almost where you are which sits which may So your story, your journey almost set up in advance, right? I mean, if you if you're in a in a in a rather smaller country as Belgian then then then it somehow is a logical step that internationalization is your next step.

Dr Andras Rung  10:11  
Yes, yes. And in some cases, it's easier for example, for Belgian company that is from the language point of view that they can get to countries and granted like France and the Netherlands. So it's easier to cover a bigger market. Why is it complicated? For example? I think for checks that to to extend?

Koen Vanderhoydonk  10:35  
Well, since you do a lot of UX UI, what, what would be typically like, if you would give us your 50 cents, your a few tips to the audience, how to best improve the user journeys, what would that be? What are the specific methods that you use? Or? Like, what do I have tips?

Dr Andras Rung  10:55  
Yeah, I think what is very important to focus on the offering, I mean, the features that or or, or which journeys we are covering with the application, especially for new startups, to select those features, not just on gut feeling, but to do very proper research and to understand the context. And usually it's not the problem that they are missing out important features, but several times they are developing unnecessary features. And especially if you're an early phase, and you are short on money, you really should not waste your little money on unnecessary things. I think that very important for every good lesson for for startups who are starting for bigger startups, I think it's more important the regular testing, so like to improve the application. But also to keep the focus, for example, I think revolute is a very good case for that. It was a very simple application. Everybody loved it. But as it was developing and more research was coming back with different needs and and expectations, the application got more fragmented, because they tried to cram in all the results, or the requests or the needs into one application. And it loads its simplicity. So no way to kind of mess up of good features. Individual the features are quite good still. Somewhat the structure and the logic got very fragmented.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  12:33  
So it's the UX part. Yes. See, I'm a fast learner and has Yeah, no. No, that's great. And it's interesting to have somebody from abroad, although I know, you're very often in the market. So I would almost consider you as a as a Belgian, so don't worry. But yeah, it's nice to have that reflection. And it's also helpful for other startups to get that feel on how things are going somewhere else. And and what are tips and tricks that you can use that specific phases of, of the lifecycle of a startup, undress, if people want to contact you? For what reason? Should they contact you? And where do they find you?

Dr Andras Rung  13:17  
Like, we're very easy to find almost everywhere. So we are quite much on conferences in the Netherlands and in Belgium, and other countries as well. We have like strong digital presence. So on our website, it's easy to contact us or LinkedIn or even email or old fashioned form works for us to like really, really pick up the steel pick up the phone.

Dr Andras Rung  13:44  
It's very good UX.

Dr Andras Rung  13:47  
So so it's easy to meet us. So so soon, we are opening our office in Amsterdam. So thank you very much. So we will be more accessible in Benelux region, physical as well. And yeah, so so we are everywhere, basically.

Koen Vanderhoydonk  14:05  
And I can confer. Well, thank you so much, Andrus, for, for sharing your insights today in this podcast. It's been a great pleasure to have you here. Also, big thank you to Belgium FinTech for making this happen. It has been a great day with many, many podcasts already. So to the listeners also, thank you very much for staying in here. Please link up, subscribe and follow our other podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you.