Work/ Reveal
Reveal Financial clarity, finally.
"The problem isn't your spending. It's the lack of visibility."
An AI-powered financial clarity layer built inside the AMEX app — helping everyday users understand where their money goes, catch hidden subscriptions, and feel genuinely in control without adding more work to their day.
MY ROLE:
Product Designer Co-led
TEAM:
Meeta, Laura, Jisoo, Jennifer
TOOLS:
Figma, FigJam, Maze
TIMELINE:
15 weeks
— THE QUESTION THAT STARTED EVERYTHING
You have the apps. You track your expenses. You even screenshot your statements. And yet somehow at the end of every month, you're standing in a checkout line with a quiet, uneasy thought: wait, can I actually afford this?
That feeling doesn't come from being irresponsible. It comes from a system that gives you raw numbers and calls it insight. You can see that you spent $340 last Tuesday — but why? On what pattern? And what does it mean for the rest of the month?
"The problem isn't your spending. It's the lack of visibility." — The insight that shaped every design decision in this project.
— THE PROBLEM
The problem isn't your spending. It's the lack of visibility.
You have the apps. You check your balance. You even screenshot your statements. And yet — somehow — at the end of every month, you ask the same question: "Where did all my money go?"
It's not carelessness. It's that financial data, as it's currently presented, is raw and emotionally disconnected. A transaction from "SQ*COFFEESHOP-194" tells you nothing. A pie chart of your "Food & Drink" category doesn't explain why it jumped 40% this month. And an auto-renewed subscription you forgot about from three years ago — that's not a spending problem. That's a visibility problem.
"The problem with existing financial tools isn't that they show too little data, it's that they show too much of the wrong kind."
— THE SOLUTION
Bringing Clarity to Everyday Finances
Managing finances is tough with unpredictable spending and hidden subscriptions. This AI-powered solution with a subscription tracker helps users monitor spending, manage recurring payments, and get personalized recommendations for better financial control.
Meet Reggie, Reveal’s AI bot helping user understand transaction details and more…
Financial Insight with multiple widgets giving detailed information into user spending
Detailed insights to understand spending spikes and easy dispute of transactions
— MY ROLE & CONTRIBUTIONS
What I specifically owned
RESEARCH
Led user interviews on financial behavior
Designed and conducted interviews exploring how users emotionally and practically respond to credit card statements. Synthesized into affinity maps that drove all feature decisions.
DESIGN SYSTEM
Built the Reveal component library
Created the full design system — color tokens, typography, icons, button states, chart components, and the Reggie bot UI pattern. Kept V1 through final prototype consistent.
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE
Defined the full product IA
Mapped the navigation hierarchy, entry points for Reggie the AI bot, and the relationship between Insights, Subscriptions, and Transaction Detail screens inside the AMEX app.
PROJECT LEADERSHIP
Co-led the project end-to-end
Shared co-lead responsibilities — managing timeline, running weekly design critiques, making product scope decisions, and presenting at key milestones.
— 01 — RESEARCH
What we heard when we asked people about money
I conducted user interviews to understand how people emotionally and practically respond to credit card bills. We weren't just asking what features they wanted — we were listening for what made them feel anxious, confused, or in control.
The research surfaced something more nuanced than expected: people weren't struggling with where to find financial information. They were struggling to contextualize it. A number without context is just noise.
😰
Anxiety over ambiguity
Users felt stressed by merchant names they didn't recognize — not knowing if a charge was legitimate or fraudulent created a background hum of financial anxiety.
📊
Charts without meaning
Users looked at charts but couldn't act on them. Data was presented — never explained. They could see what they spent, not why it mattered.
🔁
Subscription blindness
Almost every participant had at least one subscription they were paying for but no longer using — and didn't realize it until asked directly.
🤝
Wanting a conversation
Several users said they wished they could "just ask someone" what a transaction was — a direct signal for an AI-native solution like Reggie.
— 02 — MARKET
The market gives users data. Reveal gives them clarity.
We analyzed six major platforms: Apple Wallet, American Express, Chase, Rocket Money, Capital One, and Monarch Money. Each had real strengths — but three gaps appeared across all of them.
❌
Every tool waits for you to notice a problem. None tell you something changed before you discover it yourself, often too late.
No proactive insights
❌
Subscriptions are afterthoughts
Most apps list recurring charges but none alert you before they hit — and none make cancellation feel easy or obvious.
❌
Transaction data is presented clinically — no context, no tone, no explanation of what the numbers mean for your specific situation.
No human layer
✅
Reveal fills all three gaps: proactive insights, a human conversational layer via Reggie, and full subscription control — inside AMEX.
Where Reveal leads
— 03 — OPPORTUNITY
Defining the design challenge
HOW MIGHT WE
Help everyday users better understand their spending, catch hidden charges, and make smarter financial choices — without adding more work to their daily routine?
Before building, we paused to validate. We ran concept tests with lightweight prototypes to see which features landed and which created friction.
❌ WHAT CREATED FRICTION
Manual tagging. Charts users had to interpret. Notifications that felt like scolding. Overwhelming dashboards. Anything that added more work instead of reducing it.
✅ WHAT USERS LOVED
One-swipe monthly summaries that explain changes. Subscription alerts before charges hit. Gentle reassurances: "You're still within your usual range." Passive, effortless insight.
This led to our clearest product principle: users don't want to analyze their money — they want to understand it at a glance, feel in control, and get on with their day.
We chose to build inside the AMEX app rather than as a standalone product. Users don't want another app. They want their existing tools to get smarter. Reveal adds a human layer on top of AMEX — no migration, no extra login, no mental overhead.
— 04 — DESIGN
From user flows to a system that feels calm
Our wireframe process moved through three fidelity levels — rough sketches, mid-fi flows, high-fi prototype. At each stage we tested with users and adjusted. The most significant pivots came from watching where people hesitated.
Primary user journey from landing to financial clarity.
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes showcasing insights dashboard, transaction detail, subscription manager, Reggie entry point.
Logos
Chat Bubbles
Buttons
Color Palette
Navigation Bar
Icons
Emojis
Health Tracker
Charts
Logos
Trend indicators
Design system for Reveal
— 05 — USABILTY TESTING
The chatbot placement that changed everything
We tested three flows with real users: exploring spending insights, managing subscriptions, and interacting with Reggie. The feedback reshaped all three — but the Reggie placement was the biggest learning of the entire project.
V1 — INSIGHT DASHBOARD
Charts were small and dense. Users struggled to understand what changed or why it mattered. Key metrics were buried. The primary view had too much competing for attention.
V1 — REGGIE (FAB)
Floating action button with a bot icon. 60% recognition. 40% had no idea what it did. Users weren't confused about AI, they were confused about context.
V1 — SUBSCRIPTION
The word "block" confused users. They couldn't tell the difference between blocking and cancelling. Post-blocking steps were unclear, creating hesitation and distrust.
V2 — INSIGHT DASHBOARD
Simplified to one key metric per module with a drill-down layer for detail. Added descriptive language ("Up 22% this month — mostly from dining") alongside the chart, not instead of it.
V2 — REGGIE (CONTEXTUAL)
Moved below transaction detail with a plain-language prompt. Near-universal recognition. No redesign needed, just the right moment, the right place.
V2 — SUBSCRIPTION
Replaced "block" with clear action language. Added an explanation of what happens post-action. Early communication of limitations boosted trust and completion rates.
In V1, Reggie was a floating action button — 40% of users had no idea what it did. We moved it below the transaction detail with the prompt "Not sure what this charge is? Ask Reggie." Recognition went near-universal. Same feature. Different placement. Completely different result.
— 06 — FINAL DESIGN
Reveal — a human layer for credit card experiences
Reveal isn't just an insight engine. It's the layer that makes the complex feel calm — sitting inside the AMEX app, available exactly when users need it, invisible when they don't.
100%
Reggie recognition after contextual placement fix
3
Flows designed & tested end-to-end
V1 → V2
Full iteration driven entirely by test data
01
02
03
04
— 07 — FINAL DESIGN
Reflections
Emotional safety is a design constraint. When we tested a spending alert that said "Your dining spend jumped 40% this month," users felt judged — not informed. We rewrote every piece of data communication to be descriptive rather than evaluative. That shift from "you overspent" to "this is what changed" is what made the product feel supportive rather than punishing.
Co-leading taught me that product decisions are negotiation. Managing timelines, pushing back on scope creep, and keeping a four-person team aligned while each of us owned different flows — that stretched me beyond design craft. I learned to make tradeoff decisions with incomplete information and communicate them clearly.
Feature placement is half the design. Moving Reggie from a FAB to a contextual prompt below the transaction detail improved discoverability dramatically with zero visual redesign. Where a feature lives shapes whether users reach for it.
Systems thinking isn't optional in financial design. Every screen in Reveal exists in relationship to every other screen. Designing one widget without thinking about how a user got there — and where they'll go next — produced confusing flows in V1. Building a proper design system early would have saved us from inconsistencies we had to fix in iteration.
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Made with ❤️ and lots of iced lattes