Glance
Your Account at a Glance
“Am I Ok?” Exploring the Uncomfortable Space of Always-On Finances
Overview
Always-on, continuous experiences surround us. They are the very fabric of how we relate to friends, family, our jobs and more. We rely on real-time information to inform, to entertain and to deliver experiences in the moment. This is only becoming more prevalent especially in a post pandemic world. Banking has, so far, missed the always-on revolution. Glance is our attempt to change this.
To engage in this space we explored existing frameworks, industry reports, and localized company research to align with adjacent spaces to spin up empathy and content testing to probe the slightly uncomfortable space around always-on finances.
My Contribution
Role
Lead Product Designer
Side of desk project
Platform
MVP for Android
Proof of concept
Company
Capital One
Consumer Card
Target
Single card account holders who are tech savvy
Criteria
Problem
- Am I OK?
We defined the problem to solve as those moments where you quickly need to be sure that you’re ok. We’ve all experienced being in the check out line and suddenly doubting our account status. We wanted users to be able to quickly check their balance without the sometimes cumbersome task of logging in.
We asked ourselves…
What if a customer taps the app icon and is presented with actionable insights on a dashboard and only needs to sign in when actions require more security?
Using customer data, we could surface instant shortcuts for immediate engagement.
Audience
Ideally we wanted everyone to use this tool, whether you’re our upscale Upmarket customer or average Main Street customer. But for MVP we decided to focus on our more tech savvy users that were typically early adopters and skewed to our younger demographic.
Team Participants
- Product manager
- Content strategist
- Product owner
- Design
- API orchestration team
- Android development team
Acceptance Criteria
MVP represents the glanceable information that informs customers as to the state of their finances with us. In a broad sense, this is red/yellow/green. Do you need to stop what you’re doing? Do you need to keep a close eye on things? Or are you good to go? We’d provide a general view that would be discrete and show only your financial values.
Secondly, it should support our mission, to change banking for good by validating our promise to look out for you
Discovery
Known Insights
- What Dashboard of useful insights delivered concisely/visually
- Why Confidence in decision-making moments, validate or our promise to look out for you
- How API delivered content
Needs
Alignment of technology, vision and evolving customer patterns.
- Effortless
Sign in transparency - Innovative
Timely and contextual - Deepen and enrich relationships
Competitor Analysis
I found several that were also providing a limited amount of account information in an opt-in pre-authenticated space. However, the user experience of these flows were rather lackluster. They provided that immediate balance information but they stopped there.
1) Fideility T&Cs 2) Simple Today widget 3) Wells Fargo app loading 4) Pre-auth balance summery
Ideation
We pulled in business partners, product managers, data analysts along with our content strategist, we began white boarding concepts seeking an answer to these questions:
- What might a user want to see in an unauthenticated space?
- What would be comfortable?
After several sessions, we settled on four distinct approaches. These were a full screen, with swipeable rows, a tooltip overlay on the login screen, a series of dialogs overtop the login screen and a full screen with a stacked card collection.
At the time I was still in the middle of developing our design system so there was an opportunity here.
- I could depart a bit from our existing UI, pushing the boundaries of Material Design
- or Align with the direction of the design system and build out reusable components. However, Glance components could use a slightly different color palette in order to differentiate it from the authenticated experience.
I went to work taking all of the input from our group sessions to synthesize it down into four sets of wireframes. After working out the kinks, I moved into high res versions.
Whiteboard Concepts
Wireframes, 1st Round
This is the full screen swipeable rows concept. Upon tapping to app icon, this full screen bottom sheet would overtake the login screen. Tapping the X would close the experience, revealing the login screen behind it. I pulled in their profile image and greeting to re-enforce account ownership.
Swiping, the user could "delete" or "remove for now" along with an overflow menu that would provide additional controls.
As you’ll also see in the upcoming examples, I maintained a sticky footer button to differentiate Glance from the authenticated experience and give the user quick access to login.
The second concept introduced the concept of a tooltip, which was a break from Material Design. In these examples, we have the version over our sure swipe login and then overtop the username/password screen.
In this approach content would shift and scroll within the tooltip overlay. We also introduced some post MVP concepts such as spend tracking.
Dialog
The third concept, on the top row, expands on the dialog concept and the swipeable rows. This approaches pushes the boundaries on Material components.
The greeting at the top of the dialog, along with the icon, references what we know about the customer and spending habits to anticipate future actions or just to say Happy Birthday.
Card Collection
In this last iteration, I broke from Material Design and pushed accessibility boundaries into a stacked card approach. I explored, horizontal and vertically stacked cards as well as a more Material aligned and accessible card collection. With the stacked approaches, the user could swipe amongst the card containing account insights, tabs could be used to differentiate between accounts.
Wireframes, Final Round
In research we found that the way in which we explained and introduced Glance was really important to its adaptation. If we simple explained the concept without any visual examples, user were immediately against having any information available without being logged in. However, when we explained it with visuals, users were surprised and intrigued. In the end, 3 chose the dialog flow and 3 preferred the card flow.
Considering where we were in our overall Android app journey, we weighed the pros and cons of each approach. In the end, we settled on the flow that more closely aligned with Material. This would allow the dev team to create reusable components that could be contributed back to the design system and could then be consumed in other areas of the app experience. We took our existing “illustrative icons” and expanded on their style and color palette while maintaining the aesthetic. We decided on the gray nav bar as this was a departure from the authenticated experience. We wanted to ensure that it was clear to users that they were not yet logged in.
We explored our opt-in approach and expanded past MVP to identify opportunities for messaging. This brings us back to legal. I mentioned
earlier how we took note of how are competitors were handling the opt in process. Well, we were at a point where we needed to get official approval from legal that we could continue into development. Initially, via email, we were told, flat out NO. So we scheduled an in person meeting. We brought along our document of our competitors experiences and our Glance prototype – we received the go ahead.
From there I moved on to Settings. A version of this would have to be part of MVP. We were going to launch to our consumer card, single account holder but eventually it would be release to all users with bank, card account, card loans etc. I prepared two variations where I change the organizational model. The top version focuses on each account. Allowing the user to go into that account and designation what information will be pulled into Glance.
The second version, on the bottom, is organized based on the alert. So the user goes into each alert to determine which accounts should be included. We conducted on site research with associates and determined that we’d take the alert approach.
Research & Findings
I took two finalized flows, built out working prototypes, then went into user research.
Purpose
- Gather feedback on usability and preference for Glance design concepts
- Comfort of data displayed
Methods
- Usability study/cognitive review
- Prototypes for 2 scenarios were reviewed by each participant
Demographics
- 6 participants
- 4 female, 2 male
- Ages 26-55
- upmarket and mainstream
Initial Discoveries
Before I got started, describing the experience to our users created immediately concern. They were apprehensive at the idea of their account information being instantly available.
Once they saw and interacted with the experience they became immediately comfortable with the data being provided, knowing that to take action on their account would require logging in.
Feedback from both flows were positive. Preference was split 50/50 between the group. So I had to make a decision in regards to our final direction.
After lengthy discussions, analyzing pros and cons of each flow, We deciding on the card approach. This would allow the dev team to create reusable components that could then be consumed in other areas of the app experience. I took our existing “illustrative icons” and expanded on their style and color palette while maintaining the aesthetic.
Conclusion
Outcomes & Results
We released the MVP of Glance to 20% of our single-account, consumer card holders, roughly 300,000 users. Of those, 78,400 opted in to the feature, exceeding our 5–10% target with an impressive 26% opt-in rate.
Given the hesitation we heard early in research about exposing financial data pre-auth, this opt-in rate was a clear signal that users found value in the lightweight dashboard. While we didn’t track direct tap-through or dwell time, we knew that Glance was launching each time a user opened the app. Given that 36% of Americans check their bank account daily, we designed Glance to meet that moment with immediate, reassuring insights.
Even though enhancements were paused, Glance set a new precedent for what a pre-authenticated experience could be at Capital One.
System Impact
One of the strategic design decisions was to use a custom gray app bar and a sticky footer login button, clearly differentiating Glance from the authenticated experience. I built the interface using reusable cards with flexible configurations (e.g., image, icon, CTA, headline) designed specifically for the unauthenticated state but crafted with future adaptability in mind.
These components were later adopted by other design teams and integrated into authenticated experiences; including the account landing screen and individual feature flows, helping to highlight contextual moments and feature announcements. This intentional system thinking reduced dev time and gave the design system a new class of versatile components.
Cross-Platform Influence
The success of Glance on Android also inspired the iOS team to build their own variation, adapting the layout and interaction model to fit iOS conventions. While the design differed slightly, the core concept, delivering quick financial insights without requiring login remained intact. It became one of the first pre-auth features to reach feature parity across platforms.
Retrospective
My biggest regret? Not promoting the project more loudly across the organization. As ownership shifted and teams restructured, Glance became an enterprise feature with no clear long-term team. A roadshow, visiting offices, demoing the work, and building excitement might have helped it gain the visibility and champions it needed to thrive.
Still, the work made a difference. Glance reimagined how financial data could be surfaced meaningfully, safely, and humanely, even before a user logged in. And its DNA continues to live on through the systems and experiences it shaped.
Performance Feedback
“Kim is a very strong designer and I enjoy working with her. Her passion for finding the right solution, and not simply churning out the quickest solution, is refreshing. Particularly in our work together on Glance, I have appreciated her assistance in leading the effort.”
~ Product Owner, Accounts at a Glance
