Transforming Citi’s mobile banking experience
As Lead UX Designer at Citi, I spearheaded a year-long redesign of their mobile banking app used by more than 12 million users.
The project transformed the core banking experience through a dynamic, personalized interface that improved feature discoverability while serving diverse user segments.
The result was a new experience built on a scalable framework that would shape the future of Citi's digital banking presence.
My role
Information architecture | User testing | Wireframing | UI exploration | Prototyping | Design QA
Impact and results
In just one year, this transformation led Citibank to rank highest among 17 major U.S. banks for customer satisfaction with retail banking advice through digital channels (J.D. Power 2020).
Mobile customer base
12 million users
Customer satisfaction
#1 out of 17 banks
Mobile usage in North America
Increased to 25%
Customer service calls
Decreased 26%
“The new interface is awesome and very user friendly. I can get all information on the same screen.”
Original design
Design challenge and goals
Initial research with 530 Citi mobile customers revealed that 40% of Citi mobile users struggled to locate features within the app. This led to task abandonment, decreased engagement with key features across user segments and increased support calls.
Citi saw an opportunity improve customer satisfaction, deepen user relationships, and reduce service costs by:
Improving feature discoverability and navigation
Tailoring functionality to diverse customer segments
Simplifying access to essential features
Delivering relevant, actionable content in context
Building a scalable framework for future experiences
Design spotlight
Based on our analysis of high-impact journeys—prioritized by user frustration levels, usage frequency, business impact, and technical feasibility—we identified key opportunity areas across balance monitoring, payments, account maintenance, and security features.
After exploring multiple design directions, I designed a flexible card-based framework to deliver personalized, contextual experiences.
After revisiting our initial design direction for dynamic navigation—which had caused confusion during testing—we implemented contextual quick links that surface relevant actions based on the current page, providing a well-received balance between static and dynamic navigation.
I subsequently created a comprehensive Design Playbook ensuring consistent implementation and quality across design, product, and technology teams during expansion; this playbook now serves as an essential shared resource for maintaining design consistency across Citi's digital ecosystem.
Users value predictability over excessive dynamism. While personalization was a key goal, too much change in navigation confused users.
Balancing business goals and user needs involved continuous compromises. For example, we had to simplify some processes, which meant removing less-used but important features.
Design consistency across different banking segments required extra testing. Features that worked well for credit card users weren’t always optimal for banking-only users.