Case study
Lumen Finance
Lumen needed to feel fast and safe without burying new customers in steps. This write-up covers how we rebuilt onboarding around trust, plain language, and recovery paths instead of stacking more screens.
- Fintech
- Mobile
- Design system
Problem
What wasn't working
Verification was the drop-off: people quit right after KYC. In interviews they were fine with security; they just did not see how each step tied to the product. We had tuned for compliance first and explanation second, so the flow read like an audit, not onboarding.
Goals
What we aimed for
Make the reason for each verification step obvious before asking for sensitive data.
Remove dead ends: every error state shows a next step or a clear way to reach a person.
Lower perceived risk with pacing and progressive disclosure, without hiding real requirements.
Ship a small pattern library engineering could reuse in money movement flows.
Contribution
My role & tools
My role
End-to-end product design: aligning with stakeholders, journey maps, moderated research, IA and wireflows, high-fidelity UI, prototypes for edge cases, and handoff with notes on accessibility and motion. I sat with engineering through QA and launch.
Tools used
- Figma
- Maze
- Principle
- Notion
Process
How we moved from insight to interface
Research
Twelve interviews and five moderated usability rounds on how people think about moving money and risk. We lined that up with support tickets to rank failure states and wording that actually calmed people down.
Wireframes
Low-fidelity flows pushed one main decision per screen, clear checkpoints, and recovery without traps. We iterated in wireframes the team could build from before visual polish.
Design
UI used a calm type hierarchy, color only where it mattered, and components that held up on small screens. Motion was there for feedback, not decoration.
Results
Key outcomes
We watched onboarding completion, time to first transfer, and support volume tied to identity flows.
- Onboarding completion+28% completion after the new verification flow shipped.
- Time to first transfer−41% median time from account open to first successful transfer.
- KYC-related support tickets−19% in the first quarter post-launch.
Solution
What shipped
What shipped treated verification like a short guided story: people always knew where they were, what was next, and how to fix a mistake. The same patterns carried into transfers and limits so the app felt consistent when things got stressful, not only during signup.
