My Work

Design Principles

About Me

Resume

UX Design

Designing a Mobile Onboarding Workflow Built to Scale

Moving customer acquisition from sales led to self serve

At a Glance

Problem: Assisted onboarding couldn’t scale and slowed customer acquisition

Role: Senior UX Designer, end-to-end ownership

Scope: External web + mobile onboarding, backend constraints, operational workflows

Outcome: Reduced completion time, increased application volume, lower operational cost

Timeline

2024-Present

Tools

Figma, Lucid, Jira, Glassbox

Where the Process Broke Down

Digital onboarding had been part of the business for several years, but the experience hadn’t been designed to scale. Over time, incremental changes introduced additional steps, manual reviews, and dependencies on internal teams.

While customers could technically complete onboarding, they were often blocked from starting independently. Every application required some level of assistance, which slowed down activation and created unnecessary work for operations teams.

As application volume increased, the process became harder to manage. What worked at a lower scale created growing operational overhead, making the existing model unsustainable as the business continued to grow.

What Needed To Change

The goal was to allow customers to start an application the moment they encountered the product, without needing assistance from internal teams. At the same time, the experience needed to preserve required validation, compliance checks, and system integrity.

Rather than rebuilding the entire onboarding system, we focused on creating a self serve entry point that reduced friction while minimizing risk to the core product. This approach allowed us to move faster, limit disruption, and validate changes incrementally.

The experience needed to feel approachable and lightweight, while still supporting the data and workflows required downstream.

My Role in Shaping the Experience

I led UX for the onboarding experience, from early problem framing through design, validation, and post launch refinement.

I partnered closely with product, engineering, and operations to understand constraints, align on priorities, and make decisions that balanced customer needs with technical and business realities. This included defining scope, shaping interaction patterns, and helping teams move forward when requirements were still evolving.

Throughout the process, I was responsible for design decisions and tradeoffs, ensuring the experience remained usable, scalable, and maintainable over time.

Tradeoffs Made Early

Several key decisions shaped the direction of the experience early on.

Key decisions

Prioritized early activation over full data collection upfront
Accepted reduced customization to speed onboarding and reduce complexity
Deferred edge cases to protect system stability and meet timelines

These tradeoffs allowed customers to get started quickly while ensuring the system could handle increased volume without introducing unnecessary risk. Some flexibility was intentionally postponed in favor of clarity, reliability, and speed.

Results

Once the experience was live, the impact showed up quickly and the results were immediate.

$60,000

Estimated savings per month in sales labor

$3M+

total application volume

Minutes

Average completion time dropped to under

98%

increase in organic applications from existing app users

Establishing a Durable Structure

The first priority was structure. The application needed to support a long sequence of questions without feeling fragile or overwhelming. I focused on defining a clear, end-to-end flow that could evolve over time, rather than locking the experience into a rigid sequence too early. This made it easier to adjust pages and questions later without disrupting the entire application.

A sturdy flow designed to support iteration without rework

Structure and spacing are used to reduce perceived effort across a long form.

Structure and spacing are used to reduce perceived effort across a long form.

Reducing Effort Through Structure and Interaction

Wireframes focused on reducing cognitive load. Inputs were grouped intentionally, spacing was used to prevent a dense, form-heavy feel, and progress indicators helped users understand where they were and how much remained. I also flagged areas likely to cause hesitation so they could be evaluated and refined using real usage data after launch.

Modernizing Without Breaking Familiarity

Once the structure was validated, the interface was brought into full UI. The goal was to modernize the experience while preserving familiarity with the rest of the application. Updated components and layouts were introduced carefully, prioritizing clarity and momentum over visual novelty.

Modernizing Without Breaking Familiarity

A refreshed interface that balanced clarity with brand continuity.

From Design to a Working System

During development, I served as one of two QA reviewers.

This involved testing across permission levels, validating error states, verifying keyboard behaviors, and catching visual inconsistencies before release. Once live, we monitored behavior through BI dashboards and session replays to identify friction points.

Where the Experience is Heading

Upcoming phases include a web-based version that allows sales reps to send custom application links, eliminating the need to download the app. Additional work includes pre-filled fields using public data and deeper integration into a new payout workflow.

This project positioned me to continue leading some of the most impactful initiatives across the company.

Reflections & Impact

Early Signals

The impact showed up quickly once the application went live. Without any marketing push, we saw a sharp increase in organic applications from users who were already active in other parts of the app but had never signed up for this service. That confirmed the core assumption behind the work: access, not interest was the primary blocker. It also validated the decision to focus on self-serve first, rather than incremental improvements to a sales-led process.

Early Signals