CASE STUDY
Chase Budgeting Tool
From Stalled to Shipped: Leading a High-Stakes Redesign at Chase
Project Details
Client:
JPMorgan Chase
Role:
Design Mgr, Lead UX (Vice President)
DaTE:
2021
Team:
Retail Banking
Leadership in the Details: How Structure and Clarity Deliver Results
I joined the Chase Budget Tool team as its Lead Designer and Design Manager with six months left on the clock and a launch date looming. The project had been underway for eight months without achieving alignment or tangible forward motion. What followed was a crash course in design leadership under pressure—resetting the team, aligning stakeholders, and shipping a complex, high-visibility tool on time and on budget.
The experience taught me the power of decisive UX leadership, boundary-setting, and team enablement. That lesson became foundational to The UX Leadership Lab—a model built to help organizations get unstuck and unlock better outcomes through embedded, adaptable UX leadership.
The Challenge
Problem
The Chase Budget Tool aimed to create a seamless budgeting experience inside the Chase Mobile app. But after 8 months, the team was behind schedule, stakeholder consensus was fractured, and the introduction of a new design system added additional complexity.
Key Challenges:
- Lack of alignment around user flows, feature scope, and visual design
- Stakeholder buy-in and trust had eroded
- Design system changes in-flight, mid-project
- Team needed clarity, structure, confident leadership.
- Navigating a sudden shift to remote work during early COVID while maintaining momentum, morale, and team cohesion
Research & Discovery
Methods Used
- Deep-dive user interviews on budgeting habits and pain points
- Internal workshops with adjacent Chase design teams to ensure system coherence
- Competitive analysis of Mint, YNAB, Rocket Money, and others
- Expert heuristic reviews
- Ongoing usability testing across multiple prototype stages
Key Insights
- Users wanted a tool that was quick to set up, low-maintenance, and embedded in their primary banking app
- Visualizing spending against a clear, flexible budget was more useful than traditional pie charts or gamified metrics
- Users needed to trust the numbers—auto-categorized transactions had to be verifiable
- A daily “pacing” feature resonated with users looking for lightweight, habitual control
Design Process
Wireframing & Prototyping:
The team started with low-fidelity flows that evolved into full prototypes in Figma using the Chase design system. The core product flow was an onboarding wizard powered by Chase’s transaction data, giving users a fast and verifiable budget estimate.
Strategic Team Leadership:
- Instituted sprint planning with locked requirements to prevent scope creep
- Reinforced clear boundaries with product to protect design cycles
- Focused on service-based leadership: asking the design team what they needed and clearing the path
- Maintained forward motion through consistent review cadences and early cross-functional visibility
Final Solution
Key Features & Innovations:
- Transaction-Based Wizard: Pre-filled budget estimates based on recurring income, bills, and transfers—confirmed or adjusted by the user
- Flexible Budget Logic: Automatically calculated discretionary spending after fixed costs
- Daily Pacing: Optional feature showing how much users could spend per day to stay within budget
- Integrated Home Screen Access: Users could enter the budgeting experience directly from the Chase app dashboard
- Simple, Clear Visualization: Easy-to-understand bars and breakdowns replaced cluttered graphics
Results and Impact
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
Results & Impact
increase in OSAT scores
Enrolled Users in Year One
Active Monthly Users in Year One
Users by 2024
- Delivered on time and on budget despite early doubts
- Became a flagship example of embedded personal finance at Chase
Final Thoughts
This project pushed me to grow as both a designer and a leader. I leaned on leadership development resources, including JPMorgan’s Leadership Edge program, mentorship, and the work of thought leaders like Julie Zhuo. I learned how to protect creative teams from churn, how to build trust through clarity, and how to deliver thoughtful design in high-stakes environments.
These lessons are now central to how I work—and foundational to The UX Leadership Lab.
