Client
Lumen
Role
Lead product designer
Year
2026
Duration
14 weeks
Team
PM, 4 engineers, 1 researcher
Outcomes
1 number
Safe to spend, on the home screen
4 weeks
From first sketch to tested prototype
The problem
Lumen’s early users were 22 to 26 and new to managing money. The first version of the app copied a traditional bank: balances, categories, monthly charts. People opened it once after payday and then stopped.
What I did
Twelve interviews later, the pattern was clear. Nobody wanted to analyse their spending. They wanted one answer: can I afford this? So the home screen became a single number, safe to spend, with bills and savings already taken out.
Designing the quiet moments
Notifications only arrive when something needs a decision. Everything else waits in a weekly summary written in plain sentences.
What changed
People started opening the app before buying something, not after. The team now measures success by how rarely users feel surprised by their balance.
How it came together
Scroll through the four steps
01 / 04
01 / Step
Listen
Twelve interviews with people in their first job. Almost nobody wanted to analyse spending. They wanted to know if they could afford Friday.
02 / Step
One number
The home screen collapsed into a single figure, safe to spend, with bills and savings already taken out.
03 / Step
Quiet by default
Notifications only arrive when something needs a decision. Everything else waits for a weekly summary in plain sentences.
04 / Step
Test and tune
Four rounds of prototype tests on real pay cycles. The copy changed more than the layout did.
Safe to spend, on the home screen
From first sketch to tested prototype
Design decisions, annotated
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Early concept vs shipped
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Key insight
