Designing
financial products

UX is how the product works, UI is how it looks, and product design is both, judged by whether it holds up in production. A flow can look right and still lose users at the KYC upload step. A screen can convert and still break a disclosure rule. We hand off work that passes all three tests: the user, the business and the regulator.

Both, with the same team. We've designed savings, lending and token launches for Spark, isolated markets for Silo, and trading and KYC for NDAX, alongside equity management at Optio. The difference in Web3 product design is irreversibility. Onchain there's no chargeback, so the interface has to carry the warnings a bank would handle after the fact.

Around the decision a trader makes in seconds: price, size, and what happens when they confirm. Order state, price levels and confirmations sit where a fast decision stays a correct one. Pro and retail users get different density on the same system, so beginners get guidance and active traders get speed. For NDAX we designed both, from the simple buy flow to the order book. At Axi, the trading platform UI shipped alongside a full rebrand.

By starting there. MiCA, DORA, FCA and FINTRAC rules decide what a screen must say before we decide how it looks. Risk warnings, consent and disclosures get designed into the flow on day one, when there's still room to place them well. Legal that arrives a week before launch is what turns products into walls of text. How we place disclosure is on our financial services page.

Most run six to twelve weeks, or ongoing as a design partnership. The first one to two weeks are discovery: which step, which screen, which moment of doubt is costing you users. Products that keep growing need a team that stays. Spark Savings expanded across products and chains over three years with the same designers.

Yes, and we design for them. Specs, a component system and a handoff that settles decisions instead of reopening them, so your developers build from the files on the first pass. At Kado, the design system carried brand, website and product in one set of components. We stay through QA, because a design is finished when it works in production.

By designing for the question the user is asking right now. A portfolio view answers "am I okay", a loan screen answers "how much room do I have", a trading screen answers "what happens if I confirm". Everything else goes a level down. At Optio, that approach cut internal work by 48%.