Transforming the login experience for Chicago’s digital banking customers.

One of Chicago’s leading banks, Wintrust set out to boost acquisition and engagement by introducing a guided user interface.

Role

UX Researcher
UI Designer
Interaction Designer

Timeline

6 Months

Tools

Adobe XD
Adobe Illustrator
Lottie Files
MS Excel
Powerpoint

Challenge

Wintrust’s digital platforms lacked a seamless, user-friendly experience, logins were clunky, features were hard to find, and the journey varied across devices.

Objective

Design a conversational UI to modernize Wintrust’s digital experience, aiming to boost lead conversion and reduce bounce rates through a more intuitive, guided interface.

Role

UX Researcher
UI Designer
Interaction Designer

Timeline

6 Months

Tools

Adobe XD
Adobe Illustrator
Lottie Files
MS Excel
Powerpoint

Challenge

Wintrust’s digital platforms lacked a seamless, user-friendly experience, logins were clunky, features were hard to find, and the journey varied across devices.

Objective

Design a conversational UI to modernize Wintrust’s digital experience, aiming to boost lead conversion and reduce bounce rates through a more intuitive, guided interface.

Design Solution

Results

30%

Boost in Lead Conversion

35%

Reduction in Bounce Rate

42%

Enhanced User Engagement & Acquisition

So how did I go from this..

Previous Website

I started by…

Ensuring the solution was grounded in real user needs,
I structured my process into three phases :

Step 1

Identified a clear gap in understanding our customers’ wants, needs, and expectations  

Current frustrations and pain points?
What did they really want?
What did they really need?

Step 2

Dived into an intensive 2-week
research sprint.

11+ user interviews with existing and potential banking customers

Conducted a SWOT and competitor analysis across 4 major U.S. banks

Takeaways

Competitor Analysis

User Interviews

From both of these activities, I was able to understand what the Wintrust experience was lacking and how competitors were positioning their products in the market, as well as what was working for them.

Problems Idenitified

Lack of Visual Clarity & Feedback in Login Flow

High digital maturity and market trust of leading banks.

Strong brand identity and clean UI layouts.

From both of these activities, I was able to understand what the Wintrust experience was lacking and how competitors were positioning their products in the market, as well as what was working for them.

Step 1

Overwhelmed with insights, I needed to start prioritizing to form a strategy.

Understand key painpoints, wants and needs.

Classify all insights gathered.

Present the synthesis to stakeholders.

Step 2

Jumped into secondary research to form our product strategy and experience.

Understand key painpoints, wants and needs.

Classify all insights gathered.

Present the synthesis to stakeholders.

Affinity Maps

Affinitisation helped me discover…

Users lacked confidence in the platform due to visual inconsistency and outdated UI.

Users weren’t sure if they had made an error, the system offered no confirmation or feedback.

Users came with intent, but the interface didn’t support task-first behavior.

Customer Journey Map

Customer Journey revealed…

Emotional friction across the full experience of the website.

Identified the exact stages where users lost momentum.

Connected disconnected insights into a user flow narrative

Takeaways

Users lacked confidence in the platform's visual design.

Lack of real-time feedback created uncertainty and frustration.

Friction peaked during specific interaction points.

Step 1

I was on a very tight deadline and developers needed to start building soon.

Should the conversational UI lead with desktop or adapt mobile-first?

How could I establish visual trust while staying aligned with Wintrust’s brand identity?

What design decisions could reduce dev handoff friction and speed up implementation?

Step 2

Once the goals and constraints were aligned, I moved into design execution quickly.

Designed responsively, optimizing first for desktop, then adapting to mobile.

Focused on the login flow and homepage as high-impact entry points.

Built a flexible design system that followed Wintrust’s established brand language.

Design System

What did I do?

Aligned with Wintrust’s brand guidelines.

Created reusable components.

Defined interaction patterns.

What did I learn..

Learned how to design effectively within tight budget and timeline constraints
Prioritized high-impact, low-effort improvements to maximize business value
Small changes in visual hierarchy, feedback, and flow clarity made a measurable difference
Collaborating closely with devs early helped streamline implementation

So how did I go from this..

What did I learn..

Learned how to design effectively within tight budget and timeline constraints
Prioritized high-impact, low-effort improvements to maximize business value
Small changes in visual hierarchy, feedback, and flow clarity made a measurable difference
Collaborating closely with devs early helped streamline implementation

Transforming the login experience for Chicago’s digital banking customers.

Challenge

Objective

Challenge

Objective

Design Solution

Results

30%

35%

42%

So how did I go from this..

I started by…

Ensuring the solution was grounded in real user needs, I structured my process into three phases :

Identified a clear gap in understanding our customers’ wants, needs, and expectations

Current frustrations and pain points?What did they really want?What did they really need?

Dived into an intensive 2-week research sprint.

11+ user interviews with existing and potential banking customers

Conducted a SWOT and competitor analysis across 4 major U.S. banks

Takeaways

From both of these activities, I was able to understand what the Wintrust experience was lacking and how competitors were positioning their products in the market, as well as what was working for them.

Problems Idenitified

From both of these activities, I was able to understand what the Wintrust experience was lacking and how competitors were positioning their products in the market, as well as what was working for them.

Overwhelmed with insights, I needed to start prioritizing to form a strategy.

Understand key painpoints, wants and needs.

Classify all insights gathered.

Present the synthesis to stakeholders.

Jumped into secondary research to form our product strategy and experience.

Understand key painpoints, wants and needs.

Classify all insights gathered.

Present the synthesis to stakeholders.

Affinitisation helped me discover…

Users lacked confidence in the platform due to visual inconsistency and outdated UI.

Users weren’t sure if they had made an error, the system offered no confirmation or feedback.

Users came with intent, but the interface didn’t support task-first behavior.

Customer Journey revealed…

Emotional friction across the full experience of the website.

Identified the exact stages where users lost momentum.

Connected disconnected insights into a user flow narrative

Takeaways

I was on a very tight deadline and developers needed to start building soon.

Should the conversational UI lead with desktop or adapt mobile-first?

How could I establish visual trust while staying aligned with Wintrust’s brand identity?

What design decisions could reduce dev handoff friction and speed up implementation?

Once the goals and constraints were aligned, I moved into design execution quickly.

Designed responsively, optimizing first for desktop, then adapting to mobile.

Focused on the login flow and homepage as high-impact entry points.

Built a flexible design system that followed Wintrust’s established brand language.

What did I do?

What did I learn..

So how did I go from this..

What did I learn..

Ensuring the solution was grounded in real user needs,
I structured my process into three phases :

Identified a clear gap in understanding our customers’ wants, needs, and expectations  

Current frustrations and pain points?
What did they really want?
What did they really need?

Dived into an intensive 2-week
research sprint.