Product & Experience
Enhancing the Chase Experience
Due to NDA restrictions, some details of this project have been generalized or omitted. What follows is a high-level look at my design thinking, research, and collaboration during my time at Chase.
As part of the Chase Leadership Development Program, I joined the Account Opening and Acquisition (AOA) team—a space where UX, product, and operations come together to improve how clients open bank accounts through digital and in-branch channels.
This case study explores how I identified key user pain points, transformed research into actionable insights, and worked with design and product teams to enhance internal processes and customer-facing experiences.
Problem Statement
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Despite optimization, 45% of users dropped off during digital account opening for Certificate of Deposits.
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80% of users trying to open minor accounts reported confusion or gave up.
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Breakdowns were not just UI issues—they reflected policy clarity, communication gaps, and inconsistent workflows.
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The challenge was to make sense of qualitative survey data, uncover actionable insights, and propose scalable solutions that respected users and the organization.
Goal
During my internship with the Account Opening & Acquisition (AOA) team, my goal was to improve the Chase account opening experience—both online and in-branch. I focused on identifying where users were dropping off, why users were struggling to open accounts, and how we could better support bankers facilitating these flows.
Even within a highly optimized system, I found opportunities to reduce friction, bring more clarity to the process, and design improvements that could scale responsibly across a massive enterprise.
Team
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Worked cross-functionally with product managers, UX designers, analytics, and engineering.
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Joined daily standups and planning sessions to understand workflows end-to-end.
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Analyzed customer feedback and translated it into actionable backlog items.
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Brought banker perspective to design decisions, bridging real-world and digital experiences.
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Co-led an internal design community initiative to increase engagement and cross-team learning.
01. Research & Observations
Behind every drop-off, delay, or workaround was a story—and often, a system.
Through a combination of survey analysis, frontline experience, and cross-functional discovery, I identified friction points that weren’t just digital—they were deeply ingrained in how information, tools, and expectations were delivered throughout the user journey. Here’s what surfaced:
Insight | Description |
|---|---|
Friction isn’t just digital | Users weren’t confused only by UI—they were missing product eligibility details, especially when opening minor or CD accounts. Many breakdowns stemmed from unclear policy communication, inconsistent UI patterns, and lack of contextual help in the flow. |
Survey data revealed real user pain | Open-ended responses showed ~80% confusion rate for First Banking due to unclear age limits, and 45% drop-off across account opening flows. This quantitative + qualitative signal validated where to focus improvements. |
Bankers became workaround designers | In-branch staff created “hacks” or undocumented flows to assist clients—a sign of systems being patched by people, not processes. These workarounds highlighted training and tool gaps in AAO. |
Lack of contextual help → user churn | Users often abandoned the process when account types didn’t populate or eligibility wasn’t clear—especially for CDs and minor accounts. Providing contextual guidance earlier in the flow could reverse this. |
Confusion = Delay = Abandonment | Parents trying to open minor accounts frequently had to visit branches or abandon entirely due to unclear requirements or navigation. This insight became the backbone for prioritizing eligibility visibility. |
Mapping the User Journey
After diving into survey feedback and collaborating with product and UX teams, it became clear: users weren’t just confused by form fields—they were navigating a system that didn’t always explain itself.
From choosing the right account to understanding why a Certificate of Deposit (CD) couldn’t be opened, every stage in the experience came with friction.
One critical gap? The CD flow didn’t emphasize that a personal checking account was a prerequisite. This led to user frustration when they’d reach the CD application stage only to be blocked by vague eligibility rules—without any guidance on what was missing or how to proceed.
Unlike other institutions, Chase doesn’t require clients to upload documents mid-flow. But the lack of in-flow clarity and contextual assistance meant users had no idea why they were ineligible—or that certain products like CDs were gated behind specific account ownership.
To capture these pain points and turn ambiguity into action, I created a high-level user journey map. This helped surface breakdowns across the funnel—from discovery through in-branch support—and supported our team’s effort to align digital tools, policy language, and banker workflows.
Stage | Actions | Thoughts | Emotions | Pain Points | Opportunities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Discover | Visits Chase website or app | “What’s the right account for me or my kid?” | Overwhelming number of options, unclear differences between products | Add interactive comparison tool or short quiz to guide account selection | |
Consider | Clicks “Open Now,” reviews account pages, gathers info | “Do I have what I need?” “Can I open one for my child?” | Age and eligibility rules unclear, especially for joint/minor accounts and CDs | Add tooltips, smarter filters, content hierarchy; call out joint/minor requirements more clearly | |
Apply (Digital) | Begins application, selects account type; some types don’t appear | “Why isn’t this account available?” “Am I missing something?” | CD flow lacks visibility: Users not told they need a personal checking account first | Add inline guidance in DAO flow: "To open a CD, you must have a personal checking account" | |
Apply (In-Branch) | Visits a branch for help or re-attempt | “Will this be easier with a banker?” | Banker unaware of client’s digital steps; inconsistent knowledge of product requirements | Enable bankers to see client’s DAO progress; embed a meeting tool to bridge digital → in-branch journey | |
Set Up | Waits for account approval or confirmation | “What now?” “Was my application submitted correctly?” | No confirmation or next-step instruction; client unaware if additional info is needed | Build status tracker using DAO application ID to show bankers next steps (e.g. eligibility, mismatch) |
Note on CD Flow:
Many users trying to open Certificates of Deposit (CDs) faced hidden barriers—certain account options didn’t even show up. The problem? Clients weren’t clearly told that having a personal checking account was a prerequisite. Without this information, confusion led to users dropping out or escalating to branch visits.
02. From Insights
to Actions
I didn’t just “analyze feedback”—I dove into thousands of verbatim survey responses from clients and bankers, treating each one like a clue to the real story behind our drop-off rates. My background as a banker helped me interpret what users were really struggling with inside the DAO flow.
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Enhanced the Banker Feedback Loop:
Even though there was no budget or bandwidth to overhaul the banker feedback tool, I studied the process product teams use to mainstream feedback. By mapping that process, I uncovered where insights could be accelerated—even with limited tools.
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Excel as a Design Tool:
With limited approved tools, I turned to Excel—not just as a spreadsheet, but as a qualitative research engine. I built a tagging system to categorize confusion points, triggers, and sentiment at scale. It meant reading, proofing, and coding thousands of lines manually, but the result was a clean, evidence-based story we could take to product leadership.
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Turning Data Into Action:
After synthesizing patterns, I built insight briefs and slide decks that went beyond “what’s wrong” to propose “what’s next.” I worked with multiple product teams across the user journey (shopping page, secured page, etc.) to see what enhancements were landing successfully elsewhere—and adapted those learnings into our own flow.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
I embedded myself with the product and UX teams, not just as a spectator, but as someone who could connect the dots between digital experiences and branch realities.
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Shadowing UX Teams & Researchers:
I joined user interviews and testing sessions to understand how designers and researchers frame problems—and how their insights feed into product decisions. This perspective helped me advocate for designs that worked not just in Figma, but in real banking life.
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Daily Standups = Daily Strategy:
I participated in standups with product and design strategy teams, where rapid iteration was the norm. Multiple variants (A/B/C/D testing) were often in flight at once, and my input helped focus efforts on the biggest user pain points.
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Frontline Perspective in the Room:
I constantly brought a banker’s mindset to the table. I know why clients walk into branches, and what a successful meeting looks like for them and for the bankers assisting them. That lens helped me advocate for enhancements to the Assisted Account Opening (AAO) flow—and for better digital-branch handoffs overall.
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Closing the Loop:
By linking digital feedback with real-world workflows, I helped ensure that what we learned from clients didn’t stop at the survey. It informed backlog prioritization, experiment design, and even how different teams communicated wins to each other.
03. Designing Beyond the Interface
Designing in a massive enterprise like Chase meant I wasn’t going to push pixels on a public site overnight—but I could influence flows, surface insights, and suggest scalable enhancements rooted in real user pain.
Here’s how I turned pain points into proposals:
Clarifying CD Eligibility Requirements
Many clients entered the Certificate of Deposit (CD) application flow without realizing they were ineligible due to not having a Chase checking account. The UI didn’t clarify this prerequisite until the very end—resulting in churn, frustration, and branch escalations.
What I Proposed:
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Add in-flow guidance in the DAO (Digital Account Opening) experience specifying that a personal Chase checking account is required before opening a CD
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Include a redirect CTA to open a checking account if eligibility isn’t met
Translating Confusion into Action
Survey analysis revealed that 80% of users opening minor accounts experienced confusion—mostly due to vague instructions and unclear age limits.
What I Proposed:
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Introduce inline tooltips that guide parents/guardians based on user selections (e.g., age of child, joint account type)
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Improve content hierarchy and restructure eligibility copy for clarity and scannability
Centralizing Qual Feedback Across Teams
The open-ended survey data lived across multiple dashboards and inboxes, making it hard for product teams to spot themes.
What I Did:
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Created a tagged matrix of friction themes using Excel
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Shared decks and briefs that helped inform multiple product teams—especially around age confusion and CD eligibility
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Collaborated with teammates from DAO, Secured Accounts, and Shopping Page teams to align on shared insights
Designing for Inclusivity Across Languages & Borders
As someone who worked with over 95% non-English-speaking clients, I recognized that digital processes and in-branch systems weren’t always designed with these communities in mind. I saw an opportunity to advocate for scalable, inclusive improvements—not just for clients but also for bankers trying to serve them.
What I Did:
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Initiated conversations with the AAO support team to highlight real barriers that bankers face when assisting clients—especially those who are existing authorized users but not primary account holders.
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Proposed feature improvements like a search-by-name ability for bankers to locate client profiles more easily, based on how they appear in Chase systems.
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Educated product partners on the documentation requirements and workflows involved in non–U.S. citizen account openings, which are often lengthy and not clearly supported in current UI flows.
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Worked with UX designers to explain how language barriers and lack of Spanish-language support make it more difficult for clients to prepare for appointments—often causing delays, missed meetings, or incomplete applications.
Even if these changes weren’t immediately implementable, bringing them to light created space for long-term inclusion strategies in roadmap discussions. Sometimes, inclusive design begins not with a Figma file, but with a lived experience that no one else in the room has shared yet.
04. Impact and
Influence
While I wasn’t pushing code live, the insights and design proposals I contributed were shared across multiple product pods and helped inform upcoming strategy:
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Shared with 4+ Product Teams: My research was presented to teams supporting the DAO (Digital Account Opening), Secured, CD, and Shopping Page flows. By aligning insights across these funnels, I helped connect fragmented conversations and avoid redundant testing.
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Influenced Q3+ Roadmap Conversations: My top 3 enhancement proposals—focused on minor account clarity and CD eligibility visibility—were added to the UX backlog and reviewed by leads during roadmap prioritization.
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Built Bridges, Not Just Decks: I initiated cross-pod communication loops that connected design and product teams with real user and banker feedback. In one case, a designer directly cited my tagged verbatim analysis when refining eligibility copy in the joint account flow.
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Created Lasting Infrastructure: While not all my ideas could be implemented during a single summer, the tagged theme matrix I developed is now a reference point for synthesizing feedback across dashboards—and can be reused by incoming interns or team members.
From Banker to Strategist
I used to think design was just about what looked good — color palettes, crisp layouts, clean interfaces. But working at Chase taught me that design is just as much about what’s missing as it is about what’s present. It’s about uncovering confusion, surfacing unspoken needs, and building bridges where policies or processes fall short.
This wasn’t just a summer internship. It was a systems-level education — in design, in product thinking, and in people. I learned how to translate banker friction into strategic insight. I learned how to ask better questions. And I learned that impact isn’t always a wireframe or a push to prod. Sometimes it’s sparking the right conversation, looping in the right voice, or nudging a feature into the backlog that’ll make life easier down the road.
The tools have changed—from branch systems and customer service scripts to Excel matrices and journey maps—but the mission hasn’t: to serve through design. To make experiences more intuitive, more inclusive, and more human.
This reflection isn’t just a summary. It’s a signal. Of how I think. Of how I work. Of the kind of designer—and leader—I’m becoming.
The journey continues. And I'm just getting started.
