A Backend That Couldn't Support the Idea

The first was structural, and it surfaced almost immediately. Our backend had no way to store a goal as anything lighter than its own dedicated savings account, so a flexible goal layer sitting on top of any account wasn't something we could ship as originally imagined. Our account summary cards had no room designed in for a goal reference either. Rather than compromise the idea to fit the constraint, I designed two entry points instead: create a goal directly from an existing savings account, or start from a promotional prompt that seamlessly opens a new savings account as part of setting the goal up. Getting there wasn't just a design call, it required buy-in from stakeholders and product owners on other agile teams and lines of business who owned account creation, since the fix reached well outside this feature's original scope.

Building a System From Almost Nothing

The second problem was that almost nothing existed yet to build from. The design system was thin and inconsistently documented at the time, so nearly every piece of this feature had to be built from scratch. I designed a creation flow with a live savings calculator that recalculates the required deposit as the user adjusts the goal amount, dates, or frequency. The icon set for goal profile images was mine alone to build too, dozens of generic icons I illustrated from scratch, plus a new icon-selection flow to support them. Then came the goal dashboard itself, which kept the app's existing visual language while adding a progress bar, goal and transfer details, and a separate milestones tab with trophy badges and a dated achievement log, so the gamification actually meant something instead of just looking decorative. I also designed and pushed for a compact goal element on the account summary card itself, showing the goal's icon and progress at a glance next to the balance, because without it an active goal risked feeling like nothing more than a regular savings account.

Enrollment among active customers has grown several times over since launch, and net new goal creation has stayed positive every month since.