Credit Karma Money Redesign

The Challenge

Users struggled to navigate the Credit Karma Money dashboard, leading to underutilization of banking features and increased support inquiries.

My Role

  • Design intuitive user flows to help users access and engage with key financial tools.

  • Design, launch and synthesize user testing with the design team and present to stakeholders.

  • Facilitate workshops with product and design team to leverage behavioral economics to enhance usability.

Process

  • Mapped out user journeys by cognitive behavior to identify friction points and user problems.

  • Refined content hierarchy to surface essential banking features.

  • Developed contextual guidance and inline help for smoother interactions.

Outcomes

  • 30% increase in feature adoption.

  • Reduced support calls by 25%.

Full Details

The primary surfaces of the Money product, known internally as “Money tab” and “Spend hub” were cobbled together over time by various teams launching independent features during the initial development of the product, leading to feature bloat and no unified design.

Unfocused user experience

The problem

Users were unable to find and use critical banking features because the interface was cluttered with distractions and provided no clear path to accomplish their banking tasks. This led to member support costs and churn.

The research

  • Users were churning due to a lack of banking basics

  • Transferring money in and out of the account is difficult and slow

  • Cash deposit, check deposit, and free ATM finder features were being discovered through support calls

The approach

An architecture designed for quick access to the most-used features, discovery of latent features, and intuitive navigation between (and utility of) the primary surfaces.

  1. Define and elevate “quick actions” to make intent drivers ubiquitous

  2. Make critical features around money movement discoverable

  3. Establish experience principles and unified, intuitive user flows

Evaluate existing systems

and analogs

  • XFN workshop defining principles and purposes of the surfaces within the experience (Figjam)

  • Consensus on hypotheses to inform rapid prototyping and user testing

  • Ship net new Quick Action UI component for the design system

User testing

Objective: How do users see the relationship between Money and Spend and what patterns are most likely to meet expectations?

Methodology: Unmoderated testing of 2 low-fidelity prototypes (see learning agenda and synthesis)

  • What users expect from their online banking apps

  • How navigation options from and between Money and Spend hubs are perceived

  • Expectations around “Account actions”, “More actions” and quick action UI

  • Expectations around “transfer” language and behavior

Money Tab changes

  • Update router to Quick Action UI (circular icons)

  • Update design of save and checking rows to reflect individual balances

  • Remove aggregate balance

  • Prioritize engaged features in an activated state

  • “Account Actions” section acts as footer navigation to all active or inactive features available

Spend Hub changes

  • Update router to Quick Action UI

  • Remove offer tiles and reduce content

  • Logic change: only show cash back module if user has earned cash back

  • For focus on surface utility, footer navigation is only for access to support

What we shipped

Outcomes

Quick Action UI: This component helped our users discover top-line features faster and makes most common actions more accessible. It’s subsequently been adopted by the design system and deployed more broadly in product.

Usability improvements 

  • Money movement (transfers, ATM withdrawals, cash and check deposits)

  • Feature discovery increased 19-54% Feature adoption increased 4-45%

  • Debit card activations from discovery of the debit dashboard increased 1-9%