NAB: Financial Well‑being Tools → Saving Spaces
As lead product designer, I redesigned and scaled two financial wellbeing features—Saving Spaces and Budgets—within NAB’s mobile app, empowering over 6 million active users to set savings goals and track spending more effectively.
TLDR
Role: Lead Product Designer
Scope: Saving Spaces (up to 30 buckets) + Budgets tracking
Impact: Empowered users to design multi-goal savings and managed budgets—boosting both user satisfaction and savings account engagement.
The Challenge & Strategic Goals
Enable customers to save for multiple goals simultaneously using existing NAB savings accounts.
Help customers set and manage budgets for recurring and discretionary spending.
Increase engagement and promote healthier money habits via intuitive UX.
My Role & Responsibilities
Owned end-to-end design for Saving Spaces and Budget tools within the NAB app.
Conducted user research (interviews, usability tests) targeting users struggling to achieve saving goals or stay within budget.
Defined feature flows, wireframes, and high-fidelity UI design.
Collaborated closely with PMs, engineers, and compliance teams to ensure regulatory alignment.
Designed interactive prototypes for key flows: creating a Space, moving money between Spaces, setting budget targets.
Mentored designers and contributed to NAB’s design system library.
Key Research & Design Decisions
User Research & Discovery
Conducted interviews and usability testing with digitally engaged NAB customers aged 25–45.
Key insights:
Users struggled with manual savings discipline.
There was strong demand for multi-goal tracking.
Automated saving felt like “set and forget” confidence.
Feature Flows
Designed contextual entry points to Spaces from the main savings account screen.
Introduced frictionless flows: 3-tap setup, inline editing, nudges to complete goal setup.
Automation UI
Explored 3 models for rule setup: sliders, percentage-based inputs, and preset templates.
Selected percentage allocation UI as the clearest mental model for recurring deposits.
Feedback & Iteration
After initial pilot, adjusted default Space names based on most common use cases (Emergency Fund, Holiday, House).
Added progress visualisation and timeline projection to motivate users.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Co-led fortnightly design huddles with engineering and product to balance feasibility and UX intent.
Created internal Notion docs and Loom walkthroughs to socialize new features across teams (Product, Legal, CX).
Milestone Breakdown
We approached the Spaces work through iterative milestones, balancing speed-to-market with continuous discovery and enhancement.
Milestone 1 – Create Spaces (MVP)
Delivered the foundation: allowed users to create savings buckets (“Spaces”) under their eligible NAB savings account, assign names, icons, target amounts, and dates.
Milestone 2 – Manage & Transfer Between Spaces
Introduced fund transfer logic between linked accounts and Spaces. Designed seamless flows to move money in and out of Spaces with confirmation and progress feedback.
Milestone 3 – Automate Saving with Rules
Enabled users to automate contributions to Spaces. Designed a “Sorting rule” feature that allowed:
A fixed percentage of each deposit (e.g. 30% of salary) to be split across multiple Spaces.
Allocation rules (e.g. 50% to Emergency, 30% to Travel, 20% to Home Deposit)
This reduced cognitive load and drove consistent saving behavior.
Key design challenge: simplifying a rules-based engine in a mobile-first flow.
Milestone 4 – Design System Uplift
Uplifted all Spaces experience to align with NAB’s latest design system components and visual identity.
Collaborated with NAB design system team to close component gaps
Migrated to token-based theming for future scalability
Ensured accessibility (WCAG 2.1 AA)
Strategic Impact & Business Outcomes
Nearly 27,000 Spaces created within a month of customer roll-out
Positioned NAB as a leader in mobile-first financial wellbeing tools, improving customer satisfaction and digital adoption.
The redesign contributed to higher savings account activity, increased transfer velocity, and exposure to more NAB savings product offerings .
Anecdotal customer feedback: “I finally feel like my saving plan is realistic and achievable.”