Afterpay - experience design

Deep audience understanding

With our directive in place, we aimed to understand audiences’ relationships with money, general wellness, and financial wellness.

What we learned

Managing money is an ecosystem: no single institution, app, or tool rules it all. People build bespoke systems that flex with context, situation, and ambition.

The journey

The behaviour spectrum provided context, but focus had to be targeted. The top end comprised people who’d already found the help they needed; the bottom, those not ready or interested. We landed in the middle—users who are intrinsically motivated but need to build confidence and self-trust.

A working hypothesis

At this stage, an idea was forming. For the intrinsically motivated, was it possible to provide guidance for users to reach confidence alongside the utility needed to get there?

The behaviours

So we defined a spectrum of behaviours, emotions, considerations and challenges the potential customer faced using their money.

The first best customer

The range of behaviours provided important context, but the focus needed to be targeted. At the top end, we had people who had already found the help they needed and at the lower end were people who were not ready or interested yet.

The middle is where we landed with a mix of intrinsic motivation but needing to build confidence and self trust.

The entry point

Breaking down the range of use cases for various services, there were clear areas where switching costs were low and people were willing to try new services or use them to take advantage of starting offers.

Redefining the mission

To help people build a healthier relationship with money through personalised guidance that goes beyond generic rules. By balancing emotional and rational needs, we create partnerships that foster long-term financial confidence.

Where competitors see data points, we see people—and we meet them where they are to guide them toward a money-positive future.

Defining the vision

Establishing the brand

With a common pattern of beliefs and behaviours that hinder financial growth and security, the antidote was cultivating a “money-positive” mindset.

The content experience from out-of-app to in-app journey

For this to be effective, we needed to be where the audience was as much as assisting through the utility. The experience and the message needed to be considered beyond the in-app user flows.

Detailing the user journey

Mapping the MVP feature and content sets

Developing their narrative

Being strictly factual with the presentation of money is necessary, but not the whole story. However, telling the entire story is highly subjective and risks abstracting reality.

We developed a framework to help keep storytelling devices balanced between rational and emotional needs to help users understand their money, tell their stories and hear others.

Designing the system

The framework we developed evolved into a system that empowered users to engage with their finances in a meaningful way.

By integrating tools for storytelling and visualisation. The system enabled users to better understand their financial journey while fostering trust in Afterpay’s vision of a “money-positive” mindset.

Key elements of this system included:

• Visual tools to break down complex financial data into digestible insights.
• Narrative features that allowed users to share and learn from others’ financial journeys, creating a sense of community.
• Personalised prompts that encouraged incremental behaviour changes aligned with long-term financial wellness.

Defining taxonomies and visual logic

Conceptualising the delivery devices

Creating the templates

Extentending the format to IRL

With the tech stack frozen and a pilot launch clock already running, we had room for exactly one differentiator. Advanced components, nice-to-have flows, even a proper CMS for the content-led feature—stayed on the cutting-room floor.

We bet the launch on the slimmest version possible and deferred the rest. We scoped this down to the following critical set.