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Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo Mobile App Redesign / Messaging & Alerts

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo Mobile App Redesign / Messaging & Alerts

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo Mobile App Redesign / Messaging & Alerts

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo Mobile App Redesign / Messaging & Alerts

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Overview & Problem

When I was assigned to lead this workstream, I immediately noticed significant issues with how the app handled messaging. Looking at my own personal version of the app, I thought, "This is incredibly frustrating, and lacks clarity".

The messages were:

Constantly interrupting my flow as I tried to check my balance
Practically impossible to dismiss without several taps
Dominating valuable screen real estate I needed for banking tasks
Making me feel like I was being marketed to rather than helped

I still recall watching a user test where a frustrated customer sighed and said, "I just want to see if my paycheck arrived, but I havea never ending stack of irrelevant messages to scroll through just to see what I want to see, not to mention the actual information the page is supposed to be providing." That moment really crystallized our challenge.

The messages were:

Constantly interrupting my flow as I tried to check my balance
Practically impossible to dismiss without several taps
Dominating valuable screen real estate I needed for banking tasks
Making me feel like I was being marketed to rather than helped

I still recall watching a user test where a frustrated customer sighed and said, "I just want to see if my paycheck arrived, but I have a never ending stack of irrelevant messages to scroll through just to see what I want to see, not to mention the actual information the page is supposed to be providing." That moment really crystallized our challenge.

My Role

DXD Lead, Senior Lead Product Designer

When I was assigned this project, I recognized it would require significant effort, but I was ready to contribute to this large redesign initiative and represent the digital experience design team..

As the Lead for DXD and the Lead Product Designer, I championed the user's perspective in every meeting. I remember bringing actual customer quotes to a stakeholder presentation that shifted the entire conversation.
I personally crafted the content strategy, working late nights to ensure every message felt helpful rather than intrusive. I still remember the breakthrough moment when we realized contextual placement was more important than frequency.
The most challenging part was navigating relationships with legal and compliance teams. Rather than accepting their first "no," I built trust by inviting them earlier in the process and finding creative solutions that protected both customers and the bank.

DXD Lead, Senior Lead Product Designer

When I was assigned this project, I recognized it would require significant effort, but I was ready to contribute to this large redesign initiative and represent the digital experience design team..

As the Lead for DXD and the Lead Product Designer, I championed the user's perspective in every meeting. I remember bringing actual customer quotes to a stakeholder presentation that shifted the entire conversation.
I personally crafted the content strategy, working late nights to ensure every message felt helpful rather than intrusive. I still remember the breakthrough moment when we realized contextual placement was more important than frequency.
The most challenging part was navigating relationships with legal and compliance teams. Rather than accepting their first "no," I built trust by inviting them earlier in the process and finding creative solutions that protected both customers and the bank.

DXD Lead, Senior Lead Product Designer

When I was assigned this project, I recognized it would require significant effort, but I was ready to contribute to this large redesign initiative and represent the digital experience design team..

As the Lead for DXD and the Lead Product Designer, I championed the user's perspective in every meeting. I remember bringing actual customer quotes to a stakeholder presentation that shifted the entire conversation.
I personally crafted the content strategy, working late nights to ensure every message felt helpful rather than intrusive. I still remember the breakthrough moment when we realized contextual placement was more important than frequency.
The most challenging part was navigating relationships with legal and compliance teams. Rather than accepting their first "no," I built trust by inviting them earlier in the process and finding creative solutions that protected both customers and the bank.

DXD Lead, Senior Lead Product Designer

When I was assigned this project, I recognized it would require significant effort, but I was ready to contribute to this large redesign initiative and represent the digital experience design team..

As the Lead for DXD and the Lead Product Designer, I championed the user's perspective in every meeting. I remember bringing actual customer quotes to a stakeholder presentation that shifted the entire conversation.
I personally crafted the content strategy, working late nights to ensure every message felt helpful rather than intrusive. I still remember the breakthrough moment when we realized contextual placement was more important than frequency.
The most challenging part was navigating relationships with legal and compliance teams. Rather than accepting their first "no," I built trust by inviting them earlier in the process and finding creative solutions that protected both customers and the bank.

Human Centered Design Approach

I immersed myself in human-centered design principles throughout this project. My journey began with:

Conducting extensive discovery sessions where I analyzed customer feedback, NPS scores, surveys, and app store reviews. I remember one particularly eye-opening review that said, "I feel like I'm fighting with my banking app just to check my balance!"
Recruiting and testing with over 2,000 employees and customers in alpha and beta phases. One afternoon, I watched a customer struggle to dismiss a marketing message six times before giving up in frustration, that moment fundamentally changed our approach.
Creating clean wireframes that helped focus stakeholder conversations on user flows rather than visual details. This was crucial when presenting to senior leadership who initially wanted more promotional messaging.
Designing a new system of dismissible, contextual messaging that appeared naturally within relevant account and product areas. This represented a complete paradigm shift from the previous interruptive approach.
Through it all, I ensured our solutions were not only desirable to users but also technically feasible for our development team and viable for business stakeholders. Always keeping in mind desirability, feasibility, and viability

Desirability · Feasibility · Viability

Discover: Stakeholder workshops, interviews, surveys, competitive scan, journey maps.
Define: Surface friction (buried nav, unclear progress, complex redemption); prioritize by value + tech constraints.
Design: New IA, visual rewards dashboard, prototyped flows; iterative usability testing.
Deliver: Paired with dev/Epsilon; shipped pixel-perfect UI + annotated specs.

I immersed myself in human-centered design principles throughout this project. My journey began with:

Conducting extensive discovery sessions where I analyzed customer feedback, NPS scores, surveys, and app store reviews. I remember one particularly eye-opening review that said, "I feel like I'm fighting with my banking app just to check my balance!"
Recruiting and testing with over 2,000 employees and customers in alpha and beta phases. One afternoon, I watched a customer struggle to dismiss a marketing message six times before giving up in frustration – that moment fundamentally changed our approach.
Creating clean wireframes that helped focus stakeholder conversations on user flows rather than visual details. This was crucial when presenting to senior leadership who initially wanted more promotional messaging.
Designing a new system of dismissible, contextual messaging that appeared naturally within relevant account and product areas. This represented a complete paradigm shift from the previous interruptive approach.
Through it all, I ensured our solutions were not only desirable to users but also technically feasible for our development team and viable for business stakeholders. Always keeping in mind desirability, feasibility, and viability

I immersed myself in human-centered design principles throughout this project. My journey began with:

Conducting extensive discovery sessions where I analyzed customer feedback, NPS scores, surveys, and app store reviews. I remember one particularly eye-opening review that said, "I feel like I'm fighting with my banking app just to check my balance!"
Recruiting and testing with over 2,000 employees and customers in alpha and beta phases. One afternoon, I watched a customer struggle to dismiss a marketing message six times before giving up in frustration – that moment fundamentally changed our approach.
Creating clean wireframes that helped focus stakeholder conversations on user flows rather than visual details. This was crucial when presenting to senior leadership who initially wanted more promotional messaging.
Designing a new system of dismissible, contextual messaging that appeared naturally within relevant account and product areas. This represented a complete paradigm shift from the previous interruptive approach.
Through it all, I ensured our solutions were not only desirable to users but also technically feasible for our development team and viable for business stakeholders. Always keeping in mind desirability, feasibility, and viability

Success Measures (The journey to better messaging)

When we started this project, I needed to establish clear ways to measure our progress. I wanted to ensure we could tell whether our new approach was truly improving the customer experience.

First, I established tracking through NPS, customer surveys, and in-app analytics to capture both qualitative and quantitative insights.
For the metrics that would tell our story, I focused on:
- The percentage of customers actively engaging with messages versus those simply dismissing them, revealing whether our content was valuable or just being ignored.
- A measured reduction in frustration captured through targeted surveys. I remember one customer commenting, "Finally, messages that don't get in my way!"
- Most importantly, tracking the completion rates of both service tasks and marketing offers, proving our new approach could balance customer experience with business goals.

Results & Impact

Our redesigned messaging system transformed the user experience with measurable results:

65% of customers used the new dismiss capability, confirming users wanted more control.
35% of customers interacted with promotional messages through contextual placement.
90% of customers used expand/collapse functions, validating our interaction model.
20% of customers took immediate action on issues directly from messages.

Overall impact: We reduced clutter, restored customer trust by making messaging supportive rather than interruptive, and improved engagement across both service tasks and marketing opportunities.

Lessons Learned & Solutions

One of the most rewarding aspects of this project was building strong partnerships across different teams. I truly enjoyed collaborating with legal, compliance, development, and product owners from various lines of business, transforming what could have been adversarial relationships into productive alliances focused on solving customer problems together.

Legal/compliance collaboration: Built trust with legal team to develop expand/collapse solutions that improved disclosure engagement while maintaining compliance requirements. When they initially rejected our approach, I shared user data that changed their perspective and won their support.
Technical constraints: Partnered with developers on elegant CSS solutions for variable-height messaging. By creating a working prototype myself, I transformed our relationship from adversarial to collaborative, with engineers now bringing challenges to me earlier.
Adoption risk: Implemented tiered messaging with contextual placement after user testing revealed frustration with pop-ups. This approach reduced perceived interruptions while increasing engagement with critical information by 37%.

Reflection

This project became a deeply personal journey for me. One where I learned to orchestrate the delicate balance between genuine customer empathy, legitimate business needs, and complex technical realities. The breakthrough came when our team stopped viewing messaging through a marketing lens and instead asked, "How can these messages serve customers exactly when and where they need help?" This perspective shift fundamentally transformed our approach to every design decision. Our business partners shared a passion for our customers and the empathy we needed for them.

Through countless iterations and sometimes difficult stakeholder conversations, I helped transform an app experience that once frustrated millions into one that truly respects people's attention, builds meaningful trust, and naturally encourages feature adoption. What makes me proudest isn't just the metrics, but the human impact, knowing that our customers can now focus on what matters most to them rather than clearing obstacles before banking.