Challenge
Most users opened Credit Karma after a notification or when something made them worry about their finances. About 30% had notifications turned off, leaving no passive way to follow their credit or see changes in spending, bills, or available cash.
Approach
What earns space on a user’s home screen?
Having spoken with users over several earlier interview sessions, I knew they were managing many kinds of financial pressure: staying ahead of bills, working multiple jobs, preparing for a home or car purchase, and choosing which card to use for rewards. Each situation benefited from timely updates and ongoing monitoring of financial data.
The work began as a speed-run sprint with one product manager, one engineer, and one designer. We wanted to see how far a small team could get toward building and launching an iOS widget in a few days. I designed a system that kept credit, spending, income, bills, rewards, and available cash visible between app visits and could extend across the business.
Credit score
Rewards tracking
Recurring transactions
Rewards tracking
Credit Karma had landing-page surfaces for all of these use cases. But to get updates, users had to search through the app. I focused on glanceability and information that changes often: credit score, spending, income, recurring bills, card rewards, and available cash.
Recurring transactions
I designed a widget system including small and medium width, light and dark mode and focused on every tile doing exactly one job. I prototyped the set in Cursor and shipped test versions to an iOS app via TestFlight to get internal feedback.
Credit score
Income by source
Income by source
Spending by merchant
Spending by category
Recent transactions
Recent transactions
Results
Our model projected that the credit-score widget could increase return frequency by 10% among users who added it, equal to roughly 200K additional monthly active users. A live user test was the next step; these figures were forecasts.
I designed and built the full widget system in under 2 days, moving from Figma to a live TestFlight build with Claude Code. Working in code let me test changes quickly, contribute working UI styles directly to the Xcode project, and collaborate with engineering in the same codebase. Teammates tested real widgets on their own home screens using their Credit Karma data, giving the team concrete feedback on the interaction, data, and home-screen context.
- +200K
- Projected monthly active users
- Under 2 days
- Concept to TestFlight
- 12 widgets
- Across 5 money surfaces