After successfully leading the migration of Varo’s product UX from the old design system to the new MAS version of VXL, my scope increased to leading the full Product Design team, reporting directly to our Chief Design Officer.

The team expanded to include 6 individual contributors (one being a UX Engineer), with me hiring and onboarding two new members.

Key accomplishments included the full redesign of our banking signup flow, an entirely new approach to onboarding & in-product nurture, bringing credit monitoring to all customers, as well as work that enabled Varo customers to send money to anyone instantly.

Additionally, I led work to establish our Product Design Principles & Practices and the establishment of new norms and processes around Design Critique, Weekly team status stand-ups, and weekly executive Design Reviews.

Redesigned Signup Flow

The new application resulted in performance gains, with a 3% net lift in completions, and users completing the new signup flow in 25% less time than the previous flow.

Sample screens from the new MAS Signup Application Flow

Project Polaris: Onboarding + Nurture

Before this initiative, Varo lacked a cohesive onboarding strategy, and research revealed the company was losing the time-to-value battle to our competitors. The redesign introduced an onboarding wizard and a nurture pattern for Next Best Actions, which delivered a dramatic lift to both the number of new customers funding within the first 7 days, but also the amount with which they fund.

Sample screens from the Polaris onboarding “Wizard,” directly following approval during the signup flow

Polaris “Next Best Action” Nurture Carousel

Credit Score for All

Previously limited to Believe credit card customers, this Q2 2023 initiative expanded credit score access to all customers, addressing their primary financial goal of building credit and improving financial health.

Left: Before opting in. Right: After opting in

Varo 2 Anyone

This Q2 2023 feature enabled the ability to send money to anyone (including non-Varo customers) instantly for free, positioning speed of money movement as a customer value and a potential low-cost acquisition channel.

Business Impact of MAS

After rolling out the MAS brand across all properties and implementing product improvements, Sam presented impact data to executive leadership showing the effects of the new brand direction.

Next-Gen App Information Architecture

As the app evolved, the Hometab became overcrowded and the information architecture reflected organizational structure rather than user needs. A late Q2 2023 workshop explored redesigning the Hometab and broader IA in partnership with growth product teams.

A selection of App IA explorations from a recent workshop