BECU · 2025
Project Overview
TIMELINE
16 weeks
ROLE
Product Designer
TEAM
1 Strategist
2 Product Designers
2 Researchers
SKILLS
Product Design
User Research
Prototyping
Web Design
Concept Design
Strategy
Problems & Goals
Information is hard to find
Excessive jargon and fragmented navigation overwhelms users, resulting in confusion and low tree test success.
GOAL 1
Improve Wayfinding
Redesign navigation and key journeys so users can easily find information and reduce reliance on support channels.
High traffic to Support Center
Because users can’t locate key information on the site, they turn to the Support Center, driving high traffic.
GOAL 2
Enhance Self-Service
Empower users with contextual support and tools to resolve common issues and provide clear guidance.
Product-first journeys
Current credit card flows prioritize products over customer needs, creating friction and lowering confidence.
GOAL 2
Needs-based journeys
Shift to needs-based guidance that builds trust and supports financial goals.
Strategy
Digital Front Door
ENTRY
A mobile-first entry point where users first engage with BECU.
Member Activation
ACTION
Turning passive users into engaged participants with clear decision paths and guidance, driving adoption.
Personalization
RELATIONSHIP
Tailoring experiences to each users financial goals to build trust, retention, and deeper value.
Research
Competitive Analysis
I benchmarked BECU against industry standards to identify trends, best practices, and opportunities for differentiation.
Stakeholder Interviews
I engaged with 12 internal stakeholders to clarify business goals, uncover gaps, and ensure alignment across teams.
Discovery Interviews
I helped moderate research sessions to understand motivations, needs, and barriers in selecting credit cards.
Card Sorting
I ran card sorting to reveal user mental models and reorganize navigation to match their expectations.
Key Findings
Both customers and the business share a common goal: building trust and clear product value. These insights informed my upcoming design decisions.
01
Customers are seeking financial security, using credit cards as tools to stretch their budget and offset rising inflation costs.
02
Customers desire clear, jargon-free information and personalized guidance to navigate a complex credit card landscape. They usually stick to banks they already have trust with.
03
The business needs a website that showcases value, builds trust, and drives acquisitions.
Design Principles
These served as our guardrails, grounding every design decision in member needs, research insights, and a unified vision for the experience.
Goal-Driven Journeys
Design needs-based paths that reflect real financial goals and help users make confident, financially conscious decisions.
Trust Through Transparency
Build credibility with clear language, honest signals, transparent fees, and visible community impact—no jargon, no surprises.
Clarity First
Present product information simply, and without jargon so users can quickly grasp value and can make informed decisions.
Lead With Member Value
Communicate the distinct benefits of a member-focused, community-driven credit union dedicated to financial well-being.
Contextual Support
Provide timely, in-flow guidance based on user context, reducing reliance on the Support Center through proactive help and tools.
Ideation Workshops
Empathy Mapping
Mapped motivations, pain points, and goals for Members + Prospects.
How Might We...
Framed each journey step into questions to inspire creative solutions.
Crazy 8’s
Collectively generated rapid sketches and shared a wide range of ideas.
Prospect
This idea leads with journey-based product exploration and
gives the current website a facelift.
Member
Centered on a Digital Concierge powered by AI, this idea assists customers with personalized information & recommendations.
Primary Journey
We focused first on the Product Discovery journey, mapping how Prospects search for and evaluate a new credit card based on previous research.
Identify needs
User indicates interest in a financial product category
Personalized discovery
User explores recommended product options
Pre-Qualification
User selects product and begins qualification
Approval
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Design Directions
Concept 1
A near-term, practical redesign focused on clarity, usability, and industry-standard functionality.
Concept 2
An AI-powered redesign with personalized support and contextual wayfinding beyond a traditional website.
Outcomes & Impact
This project delivered actionable improvements, aligned cross-team goals, centered on user trust, and pushed the boundaries of digital financial experiences.
01
Near-term Roadmap
Positioned the redesign on a near-term roadmap to improve usability, self-service, and trust
Identified essential tools, navigation enhancements, and content updates to modernize BECU.org
Equipped the team with actionable recommendations for homepage, credit card pages, and overall site structure
02
Enhanced Cross-Team Alignment
Provided a shared understanding of user needs and business goals across Marketing, Digital, and UX teams
Offered a unified lens for teams that previously worked in silos, enabling coordinated decision-making
03
Trust for Financial Security
Informed design choices that build confidence in product selection and reduce friction in financial decision-making.
Highlighted areas for improving trust messaging
04
Pushing the Boundaries with AI
By envisioning an AI chatbot, I helped reimagine how a traditional financial institutions can deliver personalized, context-aware support across the journey while building and maintaining trust.