Relief App: A Mobile App Design
Relief: Simplifying debt management
In the face of a staggering $17.1 trillion U.S. consumer debt burden (2023), Relief emerged with a clear mission: empower people to conquer debt and achieve financial peace of mind. Their visionary roadmap included a mobile app that revolutionized debt management by creating personalized payment plans and eliminating the need for frustrating, direct creditor interaction. Relief's app puts users back in control.
My role at Relief was to establish design into a powerhouse asset for the business. My responsibilities encompassed establishing a visual identity and design system, creating user-friendly interfaces (UI) and enhancing the user experience (UX), prototyping, mapping out the user journey and flows, and creating an illustration style and Lottie animations.
Overview
Getting to know the user
The initial Relief MVP design was crafted based on product requirements and initial assumptions about user needs. Our lead UXR produced a research plan that would provided valuable insights into: target users, user expectations, and user motivations.
Analyzing this data, the team was able to optimize the user flow to address these core user needs and motivations better. This ensured the Relief MVP would offer a user-centric experience from launch.
Design Strategy
Understand, Explore, Validate, and Iterate
My user journey mapping process is all about translating product requirements, UXR data, and assumptions into action. Then, collaborating with the team, we identify pain points and opportunities to enhance the experience. This also helped me visualize user interactions, ensuring a consistent flow throughout.
Our design doesn't stop there. It undergoes usability testing with our UXR. This ensures the flow aligns with user expectations and keeps them motivated from the very beginning. In essence, it transforms insights into a user journey that truly resonates.
System & Processes
Building a design system
Early development was plagued by inconsistencies, leading to both design issues and a ton of tech debt. I spearheaded the creation of a design system using Atomic Design principles, creating a foundation of reusable components. The resulting consistency built trust with users and significantly streamlined the development process.
To ensure visual consistency and brand alignment, I employed a two layered color system. A core system defines the overall palette, while individual products can leverage their own color sets within this framework.
My Role
Senior Visual Designer
Teammates
Lead user researcher (UXR) (Allison Dickin), Content designer (Toir), Product manager, and Front-end developers
Tools
Figma, After Effects, Illustrator, Photoshop
Building a dynamic mobile dashboard
Featured Work
4. Prototype & Test:
The concept of a base template with dynamic elements would allow for efficient scaling across 15 use cases while accommodating regular updates. Further user testing would be required to refine the design and ensure adaptability.
2. Empathize & Define:
I collaborated with the content designer to gather content specific to each user journey. This content analysis helped define the core information users needed across different scenarios.
1. Challenge:
Design a dynamic mobile dashboard that caters to 15 distinct user journeys and adapts to frequent MVP updates.
3. Ideate:
I analyzed the content to identify opportunities for template creation. This exploration led to the idea of having a base template with flexible components, allowing for both static elements and dynamic functionality.
