Rethinking Kikoff's dashboards from account summaries to being actual progress indicators.

Overview

Kikoff helps users build credit through two products: Credit Account and Credit Builder Loan. There are real consequences here in that a missed payment would hurt the score they're trying to build.

I was brought in to rethink the dashboards for both products across iOS and responsive web. The goal was behavioral: help users understand where they stood, reduce confusion around how credit works, and get more of them making payments successfully.

Strategic Frame

The dashboards were account summaries when they needed to be progress tools.

The dashboard didn’t do a great job of telling users what was due, when, or why it mattered. CS volume was high, autopay adoption was low, and users didn’t know how Kikoff was actually helping their credit.

Problem 1 — Payment status was hard to find and harder to act on

The most important thing on a credit dashboard is seeing your next payment.

Due dates and payment amounts were mixed in with extraneous info. Autopay status wasn't prominent enough to prompt action. What ended up following were missed payments and preventable CS contacts.

I rebuilt the payment module around the user’s next payment—amount, due date, autopay status. Each state would get its own messaging: autopay on, autopay off, due soon, overdue, autopay failure. That way there’s always clarity around what's happening and what to do.

Problem 2 — Users couldn't see their progress

Credit building is slow and invisible. The dashboard wasn't helping.

Kikoff's value is building a consistent history of payments over time—but the original dashboard did not make any of that tangible. No sense of progress, no reinforcement that anything was working.

I introduced payment streaks and visually highlighted successful payments. Showing what you've done, what is working, what to do next. This turns a financial obligation into a moment of emotion in order to communicate progress.

Problem 3 — Two products, two inconsistent experiences

Credit Account and Credit Builder Loan had drifted apart. Users managing both were navigating two different mental models.

The redesign brought them both into similar layouts with consistent interaction patterns, which meant less cognitive load for users holding both products. Additionally, this employed a design structure that could absorb future additions without starting over.

Impact

The payment module went from one ambiguous view to five states, each with its own status, messaging, and next steps. Streaks made the arduous process of credit building visible and fun. Both products moved onto a shared structure, so users holding both stopped navigating two mental models.

Designs went to product and engineering and my contract ended before it shipped. Had I stayed longer, I would have wanted to see if autopay adoption ended up being impacted.

Reflection

A missed payment on a credit-building product is the opposite of what the user would want. Good dashboard design in this context isn't necessarily about engagement—it's about making the right action consistently obvious at the right time. That ended up being a harder and more constrained problem than I had anticipated.