Dashboard design for the UKs fastest growing start-up
Led the end-to-end redesign of Allica's business banking dashboard
Introduction
The original dashboard was designed as a minimum viable product (MVP). It offered only the basics - current balance, account details and the five most recent transactions. While functional, it didn’t deliver the level of insight and value that small and medium-sized business owners need to manage their finances effectively.
My role & responsibilities
I was brought in as a contractor to lead the redesign of the business current account dashboard.
Key responsibilities included:
Planning and facilitating discovery workshops with the project manager and engineer.
Conducting interviews, concept testing and the $100 spend exercise.
Creating low-fidelity wireframes and iterating based on user feedback.
Collaborating with engineering to align on technical feasibility.
Delivering the final dashboard design and preparing it for handover.
Problem
The MVP dashboard delivered core account information, but it didn’t align with the daily needs of small and medium-sized business owners. Customers needed more than a quick snapshot of their balance. They required tools and insights to help them monitor cash flow, track spending, and make informed financial decisions. The limited functionality meant the dashboard wasn’t serving as a meaningful hub for managing their business finances.
Challenges
Limited visibility
The dashboard only showed a small slice of information, leaving customers without a clear picture of their overall business health.
Lack of business focus
Features were geared toward basic account management rather than the deeper insights small and medium-sized businesses rely on.
Missed opportunity for engagement
With minimal functionality, customers had little reason to use the dashboard as their primary financial touchpoint.
Goals
Create a dashboard that gives business owners a clear, at-a-glance view of their financial position.
Provide actionable insights that support smarter decision-making and better cash flow management.
Design an experience that encourages customers to return to the dashboard as their primary hub for managing finances.
Project kick-off
The project began with a series of collaborative workshops in Miro, involving myself, a project manager, and an engineer.
Key activities included:
Defining goals and metrics through a product canvas to clarify what success would look like.
Identifying the target audience to ensure the dashboard would meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
Capturing assumptions and questions on a second canvas to guide our research and design process.
Planning research methods even though no prior data or facts existed, since we were building something entirely new.
Discovery & Research
To ensure the redesign was grounded in real customer needs, I conducted interviews and tested early concepts with small and medium-sized business owners. Each session was structured into three parts:
Interview to understand their day-to-day financial needs and pain points.
Concept analysis to gather feedback on early design directions and validate assumptions.
$100 spend exercise to uncover priorities by asking participants where they would allocate value across potential features.
These activities gave us a deeper understanding of customer needs and guided the direction of the design work.
Study Goals
The research was designed to uncover how business owners interact with their current account dashboard (BCA) and to validate early design concepts. Specific goals included:
Identify what information users find most valuable when first logging in.
Understand the scenarios in which participants open their BCA, the questions they want to answer and the decisions they hope to make.
Discover what participants like and what they would improve about their current BCA home page.
Highlight what is missing from the current experience.
Learn the most common actions users want to take when they log in.
Test hypotheses and assumptions related to the new home page design concept.
Ask participants to prioritise features from the proposed design concept.
Together these goals ensured the redesign was rooted in customer priorities and real-world use cases.
Concept Testing
As part of discovery we created low-fidelity designs to use in a concept testing exercise with participants. Based on competitor analysis and our hypotheses we developed two concepts that shared some similarities but also key differences, allowing us to compare approaches and validate assumptions.
The results helped us identify which design directions resonated most with users and where we needed to refine our ideas.
Concept 1
Salutation
Total balance showing available balance, overdraft & savings pot balance
Payments in widget
Upcoming payments widget
Your account section featuring cashback, cards and recently paid
For you
Concept 2
Salutation
Available balance paired with available overdraft balance
Notification cards
Your money section: Recent transactions, savings pot and cashback
Your account section: Recently paid, your cards, Your relationship manager
For you
Concept testing with a participant
$100 Spend
As part of the interviews we asked participants to imagine they had $100 to spend on the features shown during concept testing and decide how they would allocate it. The more valuable a feature was, the more money they assigned to it. Participants were not required to spend money on every feature, only the ones they felt were most important. To make the exercise easier, we used increments of $5 or $10.
Insights
Based on the interviews and exercises we identified five key insights:
Participants log in primarily to get a quick summary of their cashflow situation: balance, recent transactions and money moving in and out.
There is strong interest in deeper analytics that provide a clearer picture of overall business health.
The cashflow overview in Concept 1 was well received, though participants suggested several improvements.
The idea of a "Total balance" caused confusion, particularly the inclusion of savings pots within the business current account. Progression toward the next cashback tier was also unclear.
Participants placed significantly more value on cashflow features than on standard account features.
These insights shaped the design direction and ensured the new dashboard focused on clarity, cashflow and actionable business insights.
New Dashboard Design
From the insights we gathered it was clear that some of the suggested features were technically advanced and better suited to the long-term vision for the dashboard. For the first iteration we chose to simplify the scope and focus on delivering an achievable short-term solution that still added meaningful value.
The new dashboard introduces:
Quick actions for faster access to common tasks.
A summary section that provides a clear snapshot of account and cashflow status.
An activity feed showing recent transactions and movement of funds.
An account features section for essential information and details.
This design balanced immediate customer needs with technical feasibility, creating a foundation that can be built on in future iterations.
Impact & Results
78%
Improved clarity
Users reported it was easier to understand their cashflow at a glance.
75%
Greater relevance
Three in four customers said the new dashboard provided more of the information they needed to manage their business finances.
42%
Increased engagement
Daily dashboard visits rose compared to the previous version, with quick actions becoming one of the most-used features.
Conclusion / Learnings
This project reinforced the value of grounding design decisions in customer research and testing. By listening to business owners and validating concepts early, I was able to design a dashboard that delivered immediate value while laying the foundation for future enhancements.
I also learned the importance of balancing ambition with feasibility. Some of the most exciting ideas uncovered in research were better suited to the long-term vision, while the first iteration needed to be achievable and impactful in the short term.
Most importantly, the project showed the impact of close collaboration across design, product and engineering. Working as a small cross-functional team allowed us to move quickly, align on priorities and deliver a solution that met both customer needs and technical constraints.
Designed for all breakpoints
Widgets
I explored the different states each widget could take and mapped these out in low-fidelity. From there, I designed solutions to account for every edge case and added the final components into the Design System.
Available balance widget states
No overdraft
Overdraft available
Overdraft in-use
Cashflow widget states
Money in / Empty
Money in / Populated
Money out / Empty
Money out / Populated
Transaction widget states
No transactions
5 or less transactions
5 or more transactions
Cashback widget states
Empty
Goal / In-progress
Goal / Complete
Recent payees widget states
No recent payees
1 recent payee
2 recent payees
3 recent payees
4 payees or more
Saving pot widget states
Empty
Saving pot / No goal
Saving pot / with goal
