Empowering users to take control of their financial future. As a Principal Product Designer at Origin, my focus has been on creating a seamless and cohesive user experience across a suite of integrated financial tools. My work centers on ensuring that these products communicate with users at the right time, transforming complex financial concepts into clear, actionable insights that help them make informed decisions.
Period
Contribution
User Experience
Design Systems
Team
Atul Kakkar, Elizabeth Harder, Ben Rounds
Phounsouk Sivilay, Daniel Kaplan, Matthew Watson
At Origin, we set out to build a comprehensive personal finance platform that empowers users to take control of their financial lives. The challenge is to integrate diverse offerings—ranging from brokerage tracking and estate planning to AI-driven financial guidance—into one unified experience.
We aim to distill complex financial information into digestible insights, enabling users to take action on their finances, achieve milestones, and confidently plan for the future. As the lead product designer, I drive the product design strategy, focusing on delivering a cohesive experience across multiple tools while enhancing user engagement. My responsibilities include:
Product Design
At Origin, I continuously improve and enhance the Personal Finance Manager, optimizing its design to deliver clearer budgeting, debt tracking, and savings insights. I expand the brokerage offerings beyond automated index investing to support thematic stock investing and a high-yield savings account, empowering users to diversify their portfolios. I also refine the user experience for the complex estate planning flow, ensuring users can navigate and complete it with ease. A key focus of my role is spearheading the development of AI-driven financial guidance, delivering hyper-contextual insights based on users’ connected accounts to enhance their financial planning, retirement readiness, and portfolio management. Additionally, I design workflows that enable users to connect with certified financial planners, providing personalized recommendations to help achieve their financial goals.
Brand Design
I led a major rebrand at Origin to elevate its aesthetic, positioning the product as a premium, luxury experience tailored to a wealthier demographic. This project involved rethinking the brand identity to reflect sophistication and financial confidence. I concepted a new visual language and collaborated with illustrators to develop a suite of 3D illustrations, creating a flexible visual ecosystem that supports the app’s diverse features while maintaining a cohesive brand presence. The refreshed brand identity aimed to resonate with our target audience, reinforcing Origin’s position in the personal finance space.
Design Systems
To ensure a cohesive and scalable user experience across all platforms, I spearheaded the creation of a comprehensive design system. I collaborated closely with our design systems engineer and front-end developers to build a robust componentized library in Figma. This initiative brought the entire design organization onto a unified system, streamlining collaboration and enabling faster, more efficient handoff from design to code. The new system has significantly expedited the implementation of new features while maintaining consistency across platforms.
As a principal product designer at Origin, I have the privilege of championing the user experience while balancing the complexities of a highly intricate product. Driven by the goal of refining complex financial information into an intuitive experience, I empowered users to make informed decisions about their financial futures.
I focused on making sophisticated concepts approachable by crafting user-centric workflows that simplify financial planning. This approach was particularly impactful in the development of our AI advice feature, where I introduced a conversational interface to guide users through complex financial scenarios. By allowing users to adjust their inputs and visualize alternative outcomes, I transformed an otherwise overwhelming process into a guided, digestible journey.
Beyond a simple chat window, I designed proactive insights that meet users where they are. This included delivering timely notifications on significant portfolio movements during market hours and providing actionable guidance on optimizing finances—such as how much to allocate to an emergency fund or invest in high-yield accounts. This two-pronged approach to AI was transformative, empowering users with both reactive advice and proactive support.
My approach to designing financial products is rooted in a philosophy of “elegance through restraint.”
I believe in presenting users with the right information at the right time, avoiding jargon, and using human-centered language that sets Origin apart from traditional financial institutions. By prioritizing clarity and removing unnecessary visual noise, I created a product that feels both approachable and powerful, allowing users to focus on what truly matters.
