Simplifying Trust Bank's Onboarding

Reducing drop-offs and making the process flexible for new users

ROLE

UX Designer

PLATFORM

iOS/Android

INDUSTRY

Finance

DURATION

10 weeks

Why users were quitting before they started

When a new user opens Trust Bank’s app to register their account, they were required to complete over 15+ long setup tasks like verifying contact details, setting up direct deposits, enrolling in Bill Pay, customizing their dashboard, and activating financial tools like Zelle and credit score tracking.

"this is so boring"

"Why so many tasks?"

"Why can’t I just deal with this later?"

"I wish I could choose when to do the less urgent stuff"

"I didn’t know which tasks were important and which ones I could skip"

Reducing drop-offs and giving control back to the user

We simplified key tasks and gave users more control over the process. The new flow adapts to user preferences, allowing them to skip non-mandatory tasks anytime and return later, while maintaining compliance and security standards.

95%

SATISFIED USERS WITH THE NEW PROCESS

SATISFIED USERS WITH THE NEW ONBOARDING PROCESS

2x

FASTER COMPLETION OF THE TASKS

50%

DECREASE IN DROP-OFF RATES

Important and urgent tasks are shown first

Verifying personal details - phone/email and creating a password

Required tasks are shown next

Making the first deposit, setting up financial insights and account alerts

Optional tasks are merged in one screen

Other features like credit score reporting, zelle and paperless enrollement

In-app reminders for any pending tasks

Once they're in the app, we send them reminders for incomplete tasks

How did we do it?

We started with understanding user frustrations through stakeholder interviews, then narrowing down the core problems in the existing flow. From there, we brainstormed ideas, built prototypes, and tested them with users. With a few iterations and failed versions, we refined it into a faster, simpler, and more flexible onboarding process.

Empathizing With The Users

Defining The Problem

Ideation & Critique

Wireframes & Prototyping

Iteration and User Testing

Shifting from "must do" to "can do later"

We categorized the list of tasks in the order of importance and discussed some patterns like combining similar tasks, offering skip options to reduce friction, and using progress indicators to guide users.

We brainstormed 10+ solutions but none fixed our core problem

After critiquing the ideas, we found the top two ideas that aligned best with stakeholder requirements, but neither were sufficient on their own.

SHOW TASKS BASED ON NUMBER OF STEPS TO COMPLETE

A more structured and predictable task progression helps standardize and add new tasks. However, the number of steps doesn’t always match the real effort required, which may cause unnecessary friction or drop-off.

GIVE SMALL TASK FIRST, PROGRESSIVELY REVEAL MORE

Giving users a quick win helps build early momentum, makes it easier to get started. However, doing just one easy task doesn’t ensure they’ll stay engaged, and they may skip over tasks that are more important or urgent.

Merging ideas and creating a progressive onboarding flow

To address the individual flaws of both solutions, we decided to combine them so they could complement each other effectively. In the new onboarding flow we present a few small but important tasks first, then the required ones and finally the optional tasks which are shown as reminders if skipped.

It wasn't just "too long", it was too rigid.

We conducted multiple rounds of testing and iteration to refine the onboarding flow. User feedback helped us identify and resolve key usability issues, improving clarity and navigation.

Takeaways

No design is perfect, and some aspects couldn’t be fully addressed due to time and resource constraints. Since testing was done on a Figma prototype, actions like saving preferences or advancing screens had no real delay, reducing perceived cognitive load.

Future testing could include randomized delays to better simulate real app behavior.Additionally, tasks are still presented sequentially with skip options, resulting in multiple screens before users reach the main app.

A potential improvement would be to introduce dynamic, behavior-based reminders such as suggesting Zelle enrollment for users who frequently transfer money, to make the process more adaptive and context-aware.

PROBLEM

SOLUTION

PROTOTYPE

PROCESS

TESTING

TAKEAWAYS