Times may change, but the users’ expectations for payment systems remain constant. Whether they are interacting with a fintech, a tech giant, or a traditional bank, they want to send and receive payments in the simplest way possible.

The fintech market continues to evolve rapidly. In 2023, it boasted over 4 billion users with around 5 trillion euros to spend across more than 15,000 tech-powered financial companies. 

As the market shows no signs of slowing down, fintech companies need to respond by continually investing significant effort to keep their customer numbers growing.

From the early days of civilization, humanity has been using different types of payment systems. From bartering in the first iteration of an organized economy through physical money that we’re most familiar with to digital platforms and transactions. The payment ecosystem we know today is largely dominated by two sides – traditional banking institutions and fintech companies. 

Apparent advantages traditional banks hold over fintechs are extensive customer bases and big budgets they can use to make data- and experience-driven decisions.

Companies and payment solutions like Stripe, Revolut, N26, Adyen, Xero, Klarna, Venmo, Apple Pay, and Google Pay take up a growing market share year in and year out.

Traditional banks are trying to keep up the pace with fintechs by investing ever larger amounts in their digital sector. At the same time, the PSD2 regulation gives fintech companies and tech giants the key to opening the large old steel doors and letting in new customers.

Regardless of what happens in the background, the main objective remains the same for all players in the finance industry: How to keep the existing users and acquire new ones?

However times may change, the users’ main objective when interacting with payment systems remains constant. Whether they are interacting with a fintech, a tech giant, or a traditional bank, they expect to send and receive payments in the simplest way possible.

Today’s users, more tech-savvy than ever, use apps and websites on a daily basis. Financial institutions’ public websites, online banking, mobile banking apps, you name it.

However, communication via digital channels only with no human interaction can pose a challenge to making users feel safe. After all, we’re talking money!

The thing is, any innovation requires some time to take root and become widely adopted. People also didn’t trust cars back when horse-drawn carriages were the main means of transport.

Is it possible to really win user trust in a digital environment? Based on our experience working with banks, here are some suggestions for establishing a trustworthy relationship with users:

In the following paragraphs, we’ll dig deeper into each one of these five.

Comments like “What on Earth does this mean?!” and “Great, I need a dictionary for this” are red flags for the user experience of your product. They signal that the language your product speaks is not properly adjusted to your customer base. 

One of the most important aspects of interacting with users is the interface copy. UX designers will tell you that it has to carry the right tone of voice. However, this aspect often gets unrightfully neglected.

We have to take into consideration the fact that the majority of users don’t understand technical banking terminology.

By providing understandable copy and a simple onboarding process, you require less cognitive effort from your users and help them make a connection with your brand. That gives you a much better chance they will feel safe and confident within your digital environment.

“They only want my money! Every time I ask for help, I get a generic answer.”

Ask people who their real friends are, and they will recall a time when they felt vulnerable and think of someone who supported them. That’s why it’s highly important to provide some kind of customer support – FAQ, chatbot, email, or phone number. Digital channels allow you to help users faster and more efficiently.

Further, banks can help users achieve their goals by educating them about good financial habits. This way, they earn customer trust, and customers spread the word.

For example, let users define big financial goals like buying a car or house and then give them small rewards if they make investments and follow their plan. If they go off course, guide them back on track.

“This thing is always here, and I never use it. Can you make it go away? I don’t even know what it is.”

Just like when a customer goes to a coffee shop and the barista asks them if they want the usual, it’s a great feeling when any service provider remembers your preferences. Why would using an app have to be different?

By tracking user habits and analyzing various data parameters, banks could offer a personalized service to their customers, i.e., learn what the users actually use and adjust their offer accordingly.

A very simple example is a user paying the same bill at a similar time each month. The app could offer to create a recurring payment with pre-filled data and ask them to verify the payment as extra confirmation.

“I pay for this mobile service, and it’s not working half the time.”

When developing their mobile apps, banks often have limited budgets spread out on too many features. But in reality, only some of those features are important to the majority of users. How to define which ones?

One possible way is by using analytics, interviews, Kano Model Analysis, or other tools to perform a smart reduction method. This is the part where you should actually bring end-users to the table. The final goal is pretty simple–to improve the features most users find the most important while adding new ones wisely.

The users will not abandon a product over 1-2 small mistakes, but they will leave if important features are not working.

There are some features users in banking or fintech apps expect to be working perfectly, such as:

When you add a new feature or make some changes to the existing ones, it will require cognitive effort from your users, but a smooth transition in small iterations probably won’t even be noticed (Meta is a real pro in this aspect). You should always be striving for improvements, but be very smart in how you introduce them.

“When I want to assign a new service, I can do it online, but when I need to disconnect it I need to come to the physical branch.”

While elderly users still significantly trust branches, the younger population prefers online transactions. Also, there is still a tendency for transactions of a lesser volume to be carried out digitally, while particularly large amounts are still often handled in the physical form. However, users are growing more accustomed to performing all transactions digitally. 

After all, we use apps for almost anything, so why should banking be any different?

First of all, banks can onboard users by letting them know what can be done online and making the process as easy as possible.

Here are a couple of more tips to improve the user experience:

If users expect to do everything online—they should be able to do it. Over time, banks will help the users feel safe by performing low-cost transactions in the app. One the user trust is earned, the doors are wide open for heavier transactions.

Cashless countries are no longer a fictional concept from futuristic movies. High-quality user experiences in digital products from other industries set high expectations for a seamless experience in the finance sector.

Following the suggestions from this article, banks can show their users that there are options at their disposal, that their bank is taking care of them, and that it understands their needs.

Banks should always strive to create personalized experiences. By learning about user behavior, adjusting the product according to user needs, and reducing unnecessary clutter, banks can help their customers perform actions faster and ultimately form a habit of using the product. Once they grow accustomed to the experience, they will be less likely to switch to another product.

We’ll leave you with a quote from a McKinsey report on the business value of design:

“The CEO of one of the world’s largest banks spends a day a month with the bank’s clients and encourages all members of the C-suite to do the same…”

Having gone through dozens of portfolios and participated in multiple candidate selections in the last couple of years prompted me to share the best practices for creating a design portfolio and propose a set of guidelines that could simplify this intimidating task.

It would appear that design portfolio creation is a hot potato most designers are reluctant to tackle. In fact, I’ve struggled with it myself back in the day. To gain insight, I’ve read a number of portfolios over the years–some of them really helped me take my portfolio to the next level.

Today, I’m in the position where I interview designers and evaluate their portfolios. To help a brother and a sister out, I’ve spelled out the tips, tricks, and useful resources for creating an impressive design portfolio.

If you read this post and click through all the links–many of them from highly experienced designers, you will notice the pattern for creating a great portfolio slowly forming.

Time to reveal the cards!

Let me give you a quick example of a process that happens every year. Many applications for our design team arrive during the year, but it never feels as intense as it does at the end of September when we open applications for Infinum Academy.

Applicants usually send in their portfolios during the last few days of the application period (that’s now). Then, our job is to pick only 12 students from a pile of applications in the next couple of days.

For this occasion, we retreat to a cozy conference room with sofas and spend the next few hours reviewing portfolios–first separately and then Marina and me together. And to think some people do this for a living!

Anyway, before we ever get our hands on one of those portfolios, a designer has to work hard to create it. Shall we rewind the process a bit?

Designers often get the urge to create their portfolio in the few days preceding the deadline for the job application they’ve been eyeing (I said often, not always).

The process goes a little like this: “Let me google portfolio creation. Well, that looks like a lot of effort. Let’s just put all of my work in one folder and let them choose what’s important. Or maybe I could create one big image so they can scroll, this should be good enough.“

Yes, I agree, something is better than nothing, and this is not always the case, but I did find myself digging through the folders quite a few times. Believe me, it’s really difficult.

Sometimes, we also see websites with a lot of images but no context, or portfolios that are not crafted for the position in question but is rather a general portfolio for various design positions in companies.

I’m not trying to be the bad guy here—on the contrary, these are just examples of what you should not do from my experience.

I’ve also seen many applications that were nicely structured, thoughtfully designed, the user experience was great, and the effort behind it obvious. Respect for that.

It seems that the colleagues from Spotify share a similar definition: “Your portfolio is your voice when you’re not around to explain your projects.” Another way of thinking is that it is like an elevator pitch about yourself. Yes, I know, easier said than done. But help is on the way!

Do you have to create a website or a PDF? There is no doubt that a website is more professional. However, a PDF portfolio presentation is a must-have, and I know that you are not going to publish everything on the web anyway, so it’s good to have a good old PDF.

After you’ve researched your dream job/company, start by creating an outline of how you want to represent yourself. That is the table of contents that you’ve seen in the books. You’ll be tempted to start with visuals, but it’s smarter to start with content.

The two main sections of content you need to cover are Projects and About you. Projects tell us what you’ve done or you’re still doing, while About you section tell us about your education and who you are.

Case studies are divided into three main parts–the number of projects, type of projects and project description.

Number of projects

This can vary and it’s not set in stone, but the rule of thumb is to go between 2 to 6. If you go up to three, you’ll have more space to go into detail. If you go up to six, then it’s good to emphasise only the most important stuff. You can always put the list of all projects you did somewhere and show your full experience.

Type of projects

Projects can be real, under NDA or self-initiated. They can also differ by the platform and industry. In the end, when choosing projects, it all depends on the position you are applying for. It is always practical to have a “modular portfolio”, like lego bricks. Prepare case studies for your favourite projects and pick the ones that represent you in the best light for the position that you are applying to—that is the only “secret” formula.

Project description

Fun part—project descriptions, yaaay. I always like to recommend that your cases follow the inverted pyramid type of information prioritization. This means that you should write the summary with the most important information stated first, then add important details only, and at the end maybe place a link that shows more details, like an app preview website or something else.

Additionally, this way you show us the storytelling skills that you need as a designer. Tell us the story about what the main problem and goal were and how you solved it. Please avoid talking about the design process, as we will talk about that during the interview.

Garron Engstrom from Facebook gave a piece of advice in his blog post which I find very useful. He said that you should focus on product thinking, interaction design, and visual design. Yup, stick to that.

When you are writing about real projects that are not implemented as you’ve imagined it, don’t be afraid to include the link of the final product. We’re aware that sometimes something somewhere is missing to make the product perfect in production. That is also the kind of experience we like to see.

We also like self-initiated projects. Yes, please! If you have few or no projects at all, don’t hesitate to create something on your own. This way you show us your skills, proactivity- and you learn new stuff!

No matter what type of project it is, tell us about your contribution. We are aware that big projects require big teams (with multiple designers). It is always good to write about the specifics of your contribution and how you helped the team build the product.

A final piece of advice for the project section – I strongly recommend that you write content in your own voice, because the portfolio should represent you and your style of communication.

Enough projects talk. Let’s talk about you! The most recent and important things about your formal and additional education, a short history of your work experience, additional skills such as web development, 3D, database management, and other things you found interesting for the job you’re applying to should all be here.

I’m personally a fan of the CV&Portfolio cocktail (or a burrito if you wish), which allows me to get to know you in just one file. I’m aware that some companies prefer the two documents to be separate and that’s fine. The most important thing is that your portfolio is easy to scan regardless of the format or the number of slides.

If you stick to the title and a few sentences with an accompanying product image per slide, you are on the right track. On slides which only contain images, remember to create captions in order to make clear what the reader is looking at. Also, please do not use highly isometric mockups where I can’t see anything. The rest of the creativity is up to you.

You are not done yet! First, check your grammar. Maybe it is good to have someone else proofread your portfolio and application before you send it.

Next, you should check links because you worked on it for soooo long and copy/pasting can be tricky sometimes. Collapse (close) the main categories (in Keynote, Powerpoint, or on paper) and see if it still makes sense.

Finally, send it to your (designer) friend to get their perspective. Make improvements based on the feedback, if needed, and you have all the pre-requirements for your dream job to become reality–start filling that dream job application form and show off your brand new shiny portfolio!

Speaking of your dream career, I strongly advise you to acquire as much knowledge as you can, whenever you can.

If your portfolio has played its part right, you are likely to go through a few rounds of interviews. Whether they go successfully or not, jot down what you think was good and what could be improved about your portfolio or your performance. The worst thing you can do is to take nothing out of it.

You should work on your portfolio all the time, jobless or employed. The best part of creating and maintaining a portfolio is that there is no one to limit your creativity. This is your playground.

One might say: “If we’re all reading the same blog posts and books about portfolio creation, we will all create the same portfolios”. However, every one of us is a unique individual and implements the exact same theory in different ways. We all work in different companies on different projects. We even perceive this very blog post differently!

What I hope you’ll take away from this blog post are the recommended type of content to put in your portfolio and the format that works best from my experience.

Think of it as a game of cards. It’s not the hand you’re dealt that determines whether you win or lose–it’s your skill that makes the difference.

Having an ace up your sleeve sure helps.

For those who want to know more:

What makes a design portfolio truly great? by Julie Zhuo

How to write case studies for your portfolio? by Tobias Van Schneider

Portfolio Building Checklist by Tobias Van Schneider

UX Design Portfolios by NNGroup

I Got Rejected by Apple Music… So I Redesigned It by Jason Yuan

UX portfolio mistakes to avoid by Andrew Wilshere

How to build a killer portfolio by Bradley Gabr-Ryn

Completing the design course at Infinum Academy will launch you to the centre of designer action and open doors you didn’t even know had handles. Explore open courses!

Designers like to work in a creative mess and that’s totally fine when you work as a one-man band (“badum tish”). If we add a client, a developer, the client’s developer, a second designer, a project manager, and other stakeholders, things must be well defined and organized.

Start with this. Create an empty folder structure as a template and use it for every project. Single platform project means that you have either a Mobile app or Website only.

In case you were wondering what’s inside every folder – this is a detailed view.

Whaaat? Well, there is no need to have all these folders if you don’t do a full design process on the project. I know that you zoomed in on your smartphone. The image is long so you can easily download it as one image. Yup, Right click it → Save Image As… but first go to the desktop computer. Below, I will focus on each folder individually to reduce your cognitive load.

Used by PM’s and designers mostly, from time to time developers also contribute here.

Identity – the client’s visual identity (with all licenses and legal stuff).

Photos – used for designers proposal photos and final photos that are used in production.

Project Manager’s documentation – PM (or whoever is responsible for the project) keeps all technical documents and other important files for the project here.

This folder is mostly UX designers zone.

Discovery workshop – consists of preparation for and the outcomes of the workshop.

User research – contains all insights about users. Here you can place a Quantitative data folder (where we usually place statistical data) and other folders depending on which method you use.

Personas – can have one or multiple folders. If you create proto-personas and you additionally validate personas with real data from research (you should do this), then you will have Proto personas and Final personas folders.

Customer journey – storyboard and/or customer journey mapping is placed here (all artifacts from the workshop with the client and cleaned version of the same thing – usually translated to digital).

Mood board – I divided this folder into two types of mood boards – functionalities and visuals.

We keep design files in Abstract or Figma. It is mandatory to export files to the project folder every few weeks. Folders should contain the latest source files — .sketch or .fig in our case.

If this folder is not empty then good for you (and for the project).

Keep all things necessary for the testing here, whether it’s usability testing, visual appeal testing or other.

This is one of the most important parts of the project – design validation with real users.

In far far history (2-3 years ago) this was the place where developers searched for their assets.

Today when it comes to design/developer collaboration we use Zeplin or Figma. Export folder is usually used for the app icon and promo store graphics. If you need to export some assets that can’t be exported easily from Zeplin (or any similar collaboration tool), use this folder.

As a designer you always have to present something to someone. Yup, deal with it.

Store every presentation that you have here (for the internal team or for the client).

Back in the days when Zeplin or Figma didn’t exist, we exported screens into Screenshots folder.

We still use it for rare occasions when the client needs an export in .pdf or .png.

Setup of a folder with multiple platforms (Mobile app and Website or other platforms) for the same project is easy when you know all the things above.

General resources – general visual identity, brand book, fonts, etc. goes here.

General research – If you have global research, keep it here. Instead I use Research folder in the specific platform because data might be platform specific.

This is how a folder looks like when you have Android and iOS apps.

Just make separate files or folders in Design, Export and Screenshots folders.

Should I keep responsive design all in one file, you might ask? Nope.

Separate the mobile design from desktop and store them in the Design folder.

Well, in our case they are also part of the Research folder. Just create a new one named Design Sprints and add sprints by numbers.

In Design folder create Design_Sprints.sketch or in Figma or similar, and add pages Sprint 1, Sprint 2,… Sprint N.

When you are done with the sprint feature, copy–paste it to the final design file. Something like they do it at the Microsoft Outlook team.

This type of folder structure is good for our type of agency work. We have months or years-long projects and sometimes we don’t fill all folders with data. But this guide keeps us all on the same page. Do you have any suggestions or different experiences how you keep the project folder organized? Feel free to send us your thoughts on design.team@infinum.co.

Here is the folder template to make your life little easier and keep those folders clean and tidy ?

From time to time I get a question from my teammates: “Hey Emanuel, is there a Sketch plugin for…?” My answer is usually yes, Sketch’s got a myriad of extensions that can help improve your workflow. I recently delivered a talk on the topic, so I thought I’d be a good share. This list is intended for all smart, yet lazy designers who want to focus on experience and beautiful design, not on pushing pixels. Yes, there are plugins for that in Sketch.

Plugins make workflow faster, help maintain clean files, and enable designers to focus on the important stuff. Let’s dive right in:

If you use Spotlight on a Mac (if not – you should) then this could be dubbed as “Spotlight for Sketch”.

Sketch Runner is packed with features. I use it mostly to find and place Symbols. The Symbol preview is large and it’s faster to find one by its name. Just type a few letters, and it should pop right up. I also use it to install additional plugins.

This is a must-have plugin for all designers that use Sketch. It helps sort Symbols page in a keypress. Just make sure you properly name your symbols, and Symbol Organizer will do the rest.

MacOS High Sierra came with changes in gamma rendering. This can make some bitmaps look like they’re washed. Gamma Correction plugin is an official Sketch plugin that addresses the issue.

If you are like me, you use bounding boxes and don’t like fixing margins or paddings every few seconds. Simple, yet useful, this plugin helps you distribute objects fast horizontally or vertically according to your needs.

Golden Line Height makes it easy to optimize readability. It uses font size, line-height, width, and characters per line to adjust content, so it’s easy to read. This plugin can be a quick help, but as a designer, you should know why and how these numbers are calculated. Always trust your inner gut and experience when working on readability.

Although packed with features, there are two things I often use that aren’t included in Sketch by default.

“Fit Artboard Height”, fits the height of your artboard depending on the amount of content. It’s useful when you want to adjust height quickly, without affecting the width and top margin.

“Replace Layer” automatically deletes a redundant layer when replacing it with a new one. It’s useful if copying, pasting and then deleting the old layer seems like a waste of time.

This plugin is great for sorting and cleaning a Sketch file. Except the fact that you can clean up artboard mess in an instant (we’ve all been there), this plugin sorts your artboards in a list from left to right. Horizontal and vertical margins can be changed the way you like.

Rename It helps you rename artboards in an instance. We use numbers for naming artboards, the first part always starts with numbers (page.flow.state), and the rest is the name of the screen, e.g. 01.01. Onboarding – Step 1. Why so? Numbers are best for sorting, and when a client refers to a specific artboard, it’s easy to reference.

Again, we’ve all been there. You work, grouping and ungrouping; after some time your file is one big mess. This includes indefinite amounts of subfolders that contain only one item. This simple plugin helps you clean up this mess with a single click.

InVision created a plugin with a lot of great features. I use it mostly to fetch real data, but the best part by far is a feature enabling you to create and upload a prototype directly to InVision.

This great plugin allows you to find all the places where a selected symbol is used. You can select one or all instances on a page, and quickly replace them with another symbol.

After some time of swapping symbols on pages, you will end up having incorrect names of symbols in your layer lists. This plugin helps change all the symbol names to the name of their master in a second. This is my favorite plugin of such kind because of its cool option to rename all instances except the ones on symbols page.

If you design based on Atomic design principles, then you probably have to create a style guide for your design system using Symbols. This plugin will help you easily export all symbol instances on one page, making it much easier to drag symbols around and create a perfect style guide.

Use this plugin when you need to swap symbols in a design file with symbols from a master library.

A lot of people have some kind of color-blindness. Your duty as a designer is to make your designs accessible. Using Stark puts you in their shoes, and lets you see your design as colorblind people see it.

After you’ve installed all the above-mentioned plugins, the first problem will be shortcut conflicts. Sketch Plugin Monster helps you solve this problem in a very simple way. You can see all the conflicts and easily change shortcuts. There’s also an option to export/import all the shortcuts.

What makes them even more amazing is the fact they’re all free. If you found a plugin you like, I encourage you to support the developers by donating a buck. After all, they made your life easier.

More useful plugins and programs that didn’t make it on the list are Random Size, Font Finder, Map Generator, PDF export, Sketch2AE, Sketch Select, Abstract, Crystal, Zeplin… In the sea of plugins, there are always some that can help you. Use the time you’ve spared to solve problems and craft great experiences. Be lazy, let software push pixels for you.

I admit I don’t want to spend time cleaning design files, sorting artboards, and all other muscle tasks. But I like my files clean (and my bass down low). It doesn’t matter if you work alone or in a team, file hygiene is a well-regarded quality. Eventually, someone else might need to work on your file, or you’ll open it a year later and might end up feeling completely lost.

P.S. If you find a useful plugin (e.g. Import from Illustrator to Sketch), please let me know in comments and write a few words how it helps optimize your workflow.