Reimagining .ORG
Introduction
BECU engaged Slalom to reimagine their website into a modern banking experience that guides customers through key life and financial moments. The project focused on a new navigation system, and a special emphasis on credit card acquisitions.
Team
Slalom
2 Strategists
1 Designer
BECU
1 Designer
2 Researchers
2 Content Strategists
Scope
Design Execution
Two main design concepts were
explored, tested, and iterated with
stakeholder and user feedback,
ultimately enabling the team to define both the future state and interim enhancements for BECU.org.
Design Strategy
The design strategy leveraged the
Digital strategy toolkit to guide
research and facilitate workshops
including empathy mapping, journey mapping, and ideation exercises which directly informed concept development.
The digital strategy workshops focused on reimagining the website to deliver a personalized experience, guided by strategic pillars, core guiding principles, and an omni-channel vision to empower and engage users across all digital channels.
Digital Strategy
Timeline
Digital Strategy (4 weeks)
Design Strategy + Execution (16 weeks)
April 2025
August 2025
High Traffic to Support Center
Fragmented site navigation led to high support center traffic, as members struggled to find information and complete key tasks seamlessly.
Information Overload
Excessive copy and financial jargon resulted in information overload, making it difficult for users to understand offerings and make confident decisions.
Loss of Mission Alignment
Independent team structures created disconnects in the website experience, contributing to a diminished presence of their mission and community impact.
Current Challenges
BECU is facing critical challenges with a fragmented navigation driving customers to support channels, overwhelming and jargon-heavy content creating barriers to understanding, and siloed teams resulting in a disconnect from BECU’s core mission and community impact.
Before
Your Member Profile
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1.5M
Members & families helped
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After (Future State)
ACME
Your Member Profile
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1.5M members &
families helped.
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Credit Cards
Strategic Pillars
Member Activation
Digital Front Door
Digital Front Door
A mobile-first, intuitive entry point enabling seamless digital engagement, offering tools like chatbots and video banking.
Member Activation
Focused investment in engaging and empowering users through clear decision flows and scalable tools.
Personalization
Commitment to tailoring experiences to each user’s financial goals, powered by responsible data use and member consent.
Personalization
These pillars were co-created with BECU’s Marketing, Digital, and UX leaders and directly shaped key design decisions.
Design Strategy
INTERIM STATE
Tweaking the current website to align with industry standards on the existing CMS.
FUTURE STATE
The “Blue Sky” vision with innovative technologies, anticipating a new CMS.
Slalom started with the Future state and worked backwards to define the Interim state.
Competitive Analysis
We benchmarked BECU against industry standards to identify market trends, best practices, and opportunities for differentiation, ensuring our solutions would be modern and competitive.
Discovery Interviews
Moderated sessions helped us understand the motivations, decision-making processes, and barriers influencing how prospects research, select, and experience a credit card.
Card Sorting
A card sort helped us understand users’ mental models regarding financial products, enabling us to organize content in a way that aligns with user expectations and improves navigation.
Stakeholder Interviews
We engaged internal stakeholders across teams to uncover business priorities, clarify goals, and identify current gaps. This ensured the redesign would meet organizational objectives and foster cross-team alignment.
Research
In order to further understand user and business needs, we conducted research to ensure our design solutions were grounded in evidence and best practices.
User Needs
Prospects and members need clear access to rates, benefits, and fees, expect content to be organized by function and context (personal vs business), and value personalized support that aligns to their stage in the financial journey.
Business Needs
BECU seeks to surface financial health guidance, meet users at their life stage, and promote self-service to reduce support center traffic, all while enabling a modern, journey-based experience that supports key product initiatives like credit card launches.
Key Findings
Empathy & Journey Mapping
Mapped user motivations, pain points, and goals across key financial moments in the credit card journey.
How Might We...
Framed each journey step into actionable questions to inspire creative solutions and align stakeholders.
Crazy 8’s
Rapidly generated, sketched, and shared a wide range of ideas for improving navigation and the credit card experience.
Ideation Workshops
Design Criteria
Communicate Credit Union Value
Clearly articulate the benefits and unique value of BECU to users
Accelerate Needs Discovery
Enable users to quickly identify and clarify their financial needs
Deliver Contextual Support
Provide timely, relevant assistance to empower users with confidence at every step
Serve Journey-Based Content
Tailor info & recommendations to each user’s place in their financial journey
1.5M
Members & families helped
$2.3M
Invested locally in 2024
$2.3M
Invested locally in 2024
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Design Directions
CONCEPT 1: JOURNEY-BASED
CONCEPT 2: DIGITAL CONCIERGE
This idea leads with journey-based product exploration and
gives the current website a facelift.
Centered on a Digital Concierge powered by AI, this idea assists customers with personalized info & recommendations.
Slalom pushed this idea forward and explored iterations for testing.
A Prospect’s Journey
Lands on BECU.org
Chooses a prompt
Types own question/topic
Discovery
Initial Engagement
Personalization
Return & Decision
“Match me with a credit card”
Shares preferences and needs
Sees personalized recommendations
Receives a temporary Member card
Returns using access code from Member card
Applies for credit card
Visits a branch with Member Card to complete process
Iteration 1
1.5M
Members & families helped
$2.3M
Invested locally in 2024
$2.3M
Invested locally in 2024
How can we help you?
Search or ask a question
What’s your goal?
What’s your situation?
What’s your timeframe?
Personal
Business
Switch to traditional banking
As a cooperative, we bring people together to improve the financial well-being of our members and their communities.
Explored an AI-driven match tool to help users identify their goals and needs, but found that a chat interface was not necessary and could detract from the search experience.
Iteration 2
Introduced prompt chips above the search box to guide users based on top searches, with products and offers displayed below; it did not address the needs of users who prefer to browse, nor did it clearly communicate BECU’s credit union identity and mission.
As a cooperative, we bring people together to improve the financial well-being of our members and their communities.
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Iteration 3
$24K
Invested in carbon offsets
1.5M
Members & families helped
1.5M
Members & families helped
Financial Health Check
Financial Planning Tools
4.8%
Average rate benefit
As a cooperative, we bring people together to improve the financial well-being of our members and their communities.
Become a member
Login
2% Cash Back Credit Card
1234 1234 1234 1234
Cash Back
Exploring BECU
We're glad you're here, how can we help you?
Match me with a credit card
Tell me about membership eligibility
Build my financial health
Plan for a big purchase
Developed an interactive mosaic wall to showcase products, services, and offers while weaving in BECU’s story and mission.
Integrated the contextual AI concierge to support users based on their journey.
Concept Testing
6
Participants
30
mins/session
Research Goals:
Explore user reactions to digital banking via AI vs human agent
Evaluate preferences for AI vs. traditional navigation
Understand user expectations and comfort levels with the “Member Profile”, whether it feels welcoming or invasive
Gather insights into how users anticipate managing their finances with AI in the next 5 years
Semi-structured Interviews
Moderated
Method:
Key Findings
Clear First Impressions
All participants appreciated the simplicity, clarity, and minimalism. The lack of clutter and the focus on clear CTA’s was a strong positive.
Personal Agency
Even though there's a high comfort using AI chat bots, people aren't ready to fully rely on it. They want helpful guidance, but also want control, personal agency, and freedom to choose their experience.
Personalization Requires Consent
“Member Profile" is a desirable feature, but needs to be reworded and more transparent on data collection.
NLP Chatbots Only!
Participants are more inclined to trust and engage with advanced AI (NLP) assistants over traditional chat bots; however, to fully trust and embrace these experiences, they need transparency about data use, visible proof of security, and clarity on AI’s role and capabilities.
FUTURE STATE
We successfully proposed a visionary concept, which is now being refined and championed by their AI team; our work equipped their designers and technologists with a scalable framework and a north-star vision to deliver innovative, personalized digital experiences for both members & prospects.
CONCEPT 2: AI DIGITAL CONCIERGE
$24K
Invested in carbon offsets
1.5M
Members & families helped
1.5M
Members & families helped
Financial Health Check
Financial Planning Tools
4.8%
Average rate benefit
As a cooperative, we bring people together to improve the financial well-being of our members and their communities.
Become a member
Login
2% Cash Back Credit Card
1234 1234 1234 1234
Cash Back
Exploring ACME
We're glad you're here, how can we help you?
Match me with a credit card
Tell me about membership eligibility
Build my financial health
Plan for a big purchase
INTERIM STATE
In the interim, we identified essential tools, content, and design enhancements needed to bring BECU.org up to industry standards, leaving the team empowered with actionable improvements to navigation, landing pages and credit card product initiatives for immediate impact.
CONCEPT 1: JOURNEY-BASED
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I’m unsure what I need
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Life Stage Priority Tool
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From increasing savings to reducing debt or to get help organizing finances.
Start now
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Pushing Boundaries
Human-Centered AI Integration
By envisioning and prototyping an AI Digital Concierge, the project redefines how financial institutions can deliver personalized, context-aware support across the journey for both members and prospects.
The use of conversational interfaces places the user’s needs and intent at the center of every interaction.
