Designing clarity in high-trust financial decisions

Reducing decision fatigue in a banking product catalog

Retail banking product pages are high-stakes decision environments. Users need to understand complex offers, compare options, and feel confident before taking action — often within just a few minutes and usually on mobile.

This case explores how to redesign the “Accounts & Cards” section of a retail banking platform to reduce cognitive load, improve comparability, and guide users toward a clear next step, without sacrificing transparency or trust.

Challenge

The existing experience required users to:

  • Read and remember information in order to compare products

  • Navigate between multiple views to understand differences

  • Interpret unclear CTAs and next steps

  • Search for critical conditions (fees, requirements, eligibility)

This resulted in decision fatigue, increased uncertainty, and delayed or abandoned actions.

The challenge was not visual polish, but helping users make a confident decision faster in a regulated, high-risk context.

My role

  • Role: Strategic UX Research & Experience Design

  • Scope: Discovery, problem framing, UX strategy, information architecture, interaction design

  • Context: Retail banking · Regulated environment

    I led the process end-to-end, from research synthesis and strategic framing to design decisions and validation planning.

Research & problem framing

Key user need:

Users want to answer three questions quickly:

  • Which option is right for me?

  • How is it different from the others?

  • What do I need to do next?

Insights

Research synthesis (persona, journey mapping, emotional curve analysis) highlighted three critical moments of friction:

  • Orientation: Users feel unsure about where to start and what to look at first

  • Comparison: Too much reading and inconsistent structures increase mental effort

  • Decision: Missing or hidden conditions increase perceived risk right before conversion

In banking contexts, clarity and confidence outweigh marketing language.

Strategic insights

From the research, several principles emerged:

  • Users scan first — structure matters more than copy

  • Comparison should rely on recognition, not memory

  • Reducing perceived risk is essential before asking for action

  • Too many CTAs dilute confidence instead of increasing choice

These insights directly informed the experience strategy.

Design principles

  • Recognition over recall
    Users should compare options at a glance without memorizing details.

  • One clear decision path
    A dominant primary journey reduces hesitation and cognitive load.

  • Progressive disclosure
    Show what’s essential first, reveal detail only when needed.

  • Confidence before conversion
    Conditions, requirements, and reassurance must appear before the action.

Methods applied

  • Explorative Studies

    Uncover user needs and behaviors. Interviewing customers who returned items to understand their expectations, frustrations, and decision-making process during purchase.

  • Quantitative Methods

    Validate insights with data. Return Rate Analysis. Analyzing return data segmented by product type, size, and user profile to identify patterns and validate hypotheses about sizing or quality issues.

  • Journey Mapping

    Visualize pain points and opportunities. Customer Journey Map Mapping the end-to-end experience from browsing to post-purchase to identify pain points like unclear sizing guides or misleading product photos.

  • Workshops

    Co-creation Workshop with Users and Designers. Bringing together frequent returners and the design team to ideate improvements in product presentation, sizing tools, and post-purchase communication.

Solution overview

Clear structure & orientation

  • Immediate explanation of how to choose: “Choose your account, then the card that fits how you pay”

  • Quick access to main categories (Accounts / Cards)

  • Clear hierarchy from the first scroll

Comparable product cards

  • Standardized structure across accounts and cards:

    • Ideal for

    • Key benefits

    • 1–2 decisive conditions

    • Primary CTA (“Apply” / “Open account”)

  • No need to navigate away to compare

Guided card selection

  • Clear categorization (Debit / Credit / Youth)

  • Logical defaults to reduce initial choice overload

  • Filters instead of carousels to keep all options visible

Confidence at the right moment

  • FAQ and reassurance placed before the final CTA

  • Common objections resolved without breaking the flow

  • Consistent CTAs to avoid doubt about the next step

Validation & success criteria

  • Hypotheses

    Users understand categories faster

    Comparison requires less effort

    Users reach “Apply” with fewer doubts

  • Proposed validation

    Moderated usability testing with comparison tasks

    Time-to-decision measurement

    Confidence rating before starting application

  • Success indicators

    Faster time to first meaningful action

    Reduced back-and-forth between products

    Higher confidence reported before conversion

Outcome

This case demonstrates how research-led strategy and structured decision design can reduce complexity in high-trust environments.

Rather than adding features or content, the solution focuses on:

  • Making differences explicit

  • Reducing unnecessary choice

  • Guiding users toward confident action

    Prototype

The prototype was created to validate structure, hierarchy, and decision flow — not to define final visual design.

It focuses on: Understanding the offer at a glance, Comparing options without memorization, Reaching a clear next step with confidence

[View prototype]

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HMI CUPRA