WithPurpose
DBA GloriFi, a Fintech Startup
Starting as a contractor and finishing as an FTE, I led UX design for Financial Insights and Credit Card products. We built a working bank from scratch (and vendors) in less than seven months, working at a frenetic pace. The bank was running successfully before funding issues forced the company to shutter in November of 2022.
Challenge
The challenge was to create a world-class banking experience on an extremely compressed timeline. Corporate wanted to launch banking, credit card and mortgage simultaneously, in less than a year—my role was Lead UX Designer for credit card and financial insights.
Approach
A staff restructuring put me in the lead UX / UI design role for customer-facing credit card mid-stream. I quickly took stock of our immediate status on credit card and mapped holes in the user experience. Concurrently, I started working with the banking team to unify banking UX/UI with the credit card experience. I also collaborated with legal to bring both the web app and the credit card marketing pages into compliance.
Process
Kickoff & Discovery: Conducted a thorough analysis of the existing assets vis-a-vis our outline. I fleshed out the outline and identified opportunities.
Research & Analysis: I led competitive analysis research, and I prepped usability studies for our UX researcher to run, analyzing the data as a team.
Information architecture and content strategy: Typical credit card flows have a few essential screens and a lot of filler. I collaborated with legal and UXR to streamline all flows, including marketing, onboarding, web and app. I also became the de facto UX writer after ours was let go.
Evaluation: I built a lo-fi diagram of the proposed website, connecting existing assets to each feature, to identify opportunities for redesign, reskinning or new features.
Structure: I organized a new file structure to divide, delegate and tackle the UX work.
UX Design: I designed new medium-fidelity wireframes in Figma as we worked out the finer details of the UX.
Hi-Fi Prototype: I developed the refined wireframes into high-fidelity mock-ups, for app, mobile web and desktop.
Presentation and handoff: I presented a final prototype to senior leadership, and worked directly with developers through the build process.
Result
The app and web app launched on schedule, delivering an impressive 1,500 cards in the first month with just a 30% acceptance rate. Customers spent $1,250,000 in the first month. Our own usability and sentiment testing returned very favorable reviews.