CASE STUDY

Business Banking App Overhaul — Strategy, Navigation & Leadership

As Lead UX Designer, I spearheaded the in-house redesign of a business banking app, prompted by an expiring vendor contract and accelerated timelines.

In parallel, I led a research-driven overhaul of the app’s navigation and information architecture to resolve usability issues and align the structure with user behaviors and expectations.

MY ROLE

As team lead

  • Oversaw team management, design strategy, UX/UI design execution, and stakeholder interactions

  • Collaborated with UX research, UI design, copywriting, and stakeholder groups

  • Ensured holistic alignment between design, functionality, and business goals

Key skills demonstrated

  • UX Strategy & Research

  • Information Architecture & Interaction Design

  • Team Leadership & Cross-functional Collaboration

  • Design Systems & Accessibility

  • Stakeholder Management & Change Leadership

  • Prototyping & Presentation

  • Agile Execution

DESIGN PROCESS OVERHAUL

Team Setup: Myself as Lead UX Designer, a Senior UI Designer, and a Copywriter

Project Scope: Redesign 9 features in 5 months over 10 sprints

🔍 Discovery

  • Held sessions with Subject Matter Experts to scope features.

  • Conducted heuristic evaluations using FigJam to uncover usability issues.

Challenge: SME unavailability was tackled by tracking story points, allowing parallel workflow.

📦 Review & Delivery

  • Presented video prototypes and reference designs to ease stakeholder resistance.

  • Prioritized engineering concerns by creating a phased rollout.

💫 Impact: Improved Workflow

Given the accelerated timeline, we streamlined the workflow by assigning focused roles with clear handoff protocols. This model was so effective it was adopted by other design teams.

💡 Ideation

  • Low to high-fi wireframes using the Roxbury Design System for consistency and WCAG compliance.

  • Aligned voice/tone by collaborating with UX copywriters on fresh copy guidelines.

  • Improved communication (morning check-ins, DMs, Figma notes) to eliminate task silos.

🎯 Result

  • Delivered all 9 features ahead of schedule.

  • Over 240 story points completed.

💫 Impact: Team Structure

By embedding design into sprint cycles and setting up weekly reviews and shared docs, we scaled efficiently and established a collaboration model now used by other teams.

💬

“It’s so much easier to get around now. I don’t feel lost every time I open the app.”

💬

“I love how simple everything is now. It saves me so much time.”

💬

“The new redesign looks great! Waaay better than before!”

NAVIGATION REVAMP: RESEARCH SPIKE & STRATEGIC DESIGN

Team Setup: Myself as Lead UX Designer and a UX Researcher

Project Scope: 6 week research spike

🔬 Research Strategy

  • Crafted “How Might We…” statements to frame the problem and define objectives.

  • Conducted a task frequency survey to highlight user priorities (e.g., view balance, deposit check, transactions).

  • Mapped existing apps using sitemaps and competitive analyses, noting navigation patterns and industry trends.

🎯 Result

The research led to valuable design insights. We secured a research spike, influenced design direction, and provided templates for navigation improvements across other design teams.

🎨 Design & Testing

  • Designed a hub-and-spoke navigation to reduce friction and enable 0–2 tap task access.

  • Replaced hamburger menu with bottom nav and relocated key actions (e.g., approvals, messages) to the header with badges.

  • Added customizable dashboard quick links for power users.

  • Conducted First Click Testing to validate task discoverability and icon recognition.

💫 Impact: Data-Driven Decisions

User research and usage data directly shaped design decisions, leading to clearer navigation and more efficient task flows. This research-led approach set a new standard for decision-making by stakeholders.

LEADERSHIP IMPACT

🧠 Strategic Process Design

Established a scalable design workflow that boosted team efficiency and became a model for future initiatives.

🤝 Cross-functional Collaboration

Led collaborative sessions with UX researchers, UI designers, copywriters, engineering leads, and stakeholders.

👥 Team Enablement

Structured roles, defined workflows, and coached team members (e.g., upskilling the copywriter to directly work in Figma).

📊 Stakeholder Influence

Enhanced buy-in through targeted prototyping, data-supported presentations, and staggered feature launches.

🧑‍💻 User Advocacy

Grounded decisions in real user data, surveys, and usability testing—improving navigation ease-of-use and task completion.

REFLECTION

This project strengthened my ability to lead complex, high-impact projects under tight deadlines while driving user-centered innovation.

By establishing a clear, repeatable design process and fostering open communication, I ensured alignment across cross-functional teams and secured stakeholder buy-in, even in the face of resistance. Managing resource constraints and parallel workflows sharpened my skills in team enablement and strategic prioritization. Though navigation improvements were not immediately adopted, the research insights influenced long-term product strategy, reinforcing data-driven decision-making in the organization. Overall, this experience highlights my leadership resilience and capacity to deliver business value by balancing user needs, technical feasibility, and stakeholder priorities.

© Eugene Park, 2025