Portfolio
PORTFOLIO > CASE STUDY #1
Crafting the content vision for Pockets
Shaping the naming and strategy for a feature set designed to boost user engagement, held balances, and card spend.
Found, an all-in-one business banking platform, faced a critical challenge: How could they provide more financial flexibility to their most valuable customers—the "whales"—without creating multiple bank accounts?
The core problem was complex: Customers wanted more ways to organize their business finances, but regulatory constraints limited traditional account creation. This presented a unique design opportunity to innovate within existing constraints.
Context
Problem
Solution
Our cross-functional team—including a product manager, product designer, engineer, and myself as content designer—embarked on a multi-quarter initiative to solve this challenge. Throughout the feature’s lifecycle, I led the content strategy, contributed to user research, and refined the user experience to ensure clarity and ease of use.
We hypothesized that customizable subaccounts could:
Prevent customer churn
Increase user engagement
Provide greater financial organization
Goals
Our key performance indicators focused on increasing total held balances, boosting card spending, and driving engagement among whales.
Key outcomes
Drove significant increases in user balances, card spending, and gross payment volume
Created a highly engaging feature for high-value customers
Developed an intuitive financial organization tool for small businesses
Exploration and discovery
The journey began with an intensive naming workshop. We explored multiple concepts, ultimately landing on "Pockets" after rigorous testing with customers and stakeholders. Our naming criteria balanced being:
Flexible
Descriptive
Intuitive
On-brand
Compatible
Memorable
I presented our recommendation of “Pockets” to Found’s co-founders in a slide deck highlighting our process, criteria, and a synthesis of our working sessions. Including customers’ first impressions made the discussion more impactful, bringing the pros and cons to life and helping us better understand their mental models.
Iterative feature development
We approached the feature's development in stages:
Established foundational backend and UI infrastructure
Created default pockets (Primary and Taxes)
Developed experiments to encourage pocket creation
Introduced advanced functionality like goal setting and automated deposits
Pocket foundations
Before introducing custom pockets, we needed to update key app and desktop surfaces to accommodate them. This required establishing a scalable model and design, with updates to both backend systems and UI.
From a content perspective, we also had to shift the language to prepare for pockets and the potential future expansion to multiple accounts. Previously, Found customers had two default spaces—Business and Taxes—that weren't separate accounts on the backend, but instead, combined to form the total account balance.
To make room for pockets, we redefined these default spaces as “pockets,” which could be customized by users. The term “account” caused confusion, as it referred to the broader Found platform, including banking, bookkeeping, and tax records. In the UI, phrases like “sign out of your Found account” and “account settings” were not specific to banking, but to the software itself.
To ensure clarity, I conducted a content audit across the app, desktop, and Found.com to identify mentions of business and taxes accounts. I also reviewed Zendesk macros to flag outdated support content. The audit revealed areas like push notifications and email campaigns where the new terminology would need careful integration.
Early adoption experiments
After launching custom Pockets, we tested several methods to encourage first-time creation. One experiment added a "+" icon and a “Create a pocket” CTA beneath the Taxes pocket. This in-context placement improved creation rates compared to the standard settings entry point. However, once removed, it left users unsure how to create additional pockets, and keeping it in place took up valuable space. Additionally, funding rates dipped slightly. Despite these issues, this approach helped clarify the relationship between Primary, Taxes, and other pockets.
We also tested a tooltip directing users to the settings to create more pockets, which increased engagement with pocket settings and provided clearer guidance.
Finally, we tested two versions of a content card. While these offered more space to explain benefits, they didn't perform as well, possibly due to weak connection to the product context.
Based on these insights, we decided to proceed with the tooltip and follow-up emails once the account was funded.
Adding user value
Over the next quarter, we added key features to improve the user journey around funding, spending, and saving. Users could now create custom pockets to earmark income, set savings goals, and automate deposit allocations as soon as they were paid.
To support these features, I worked closely with the product designer and manager on customer research. I led and observed interviews to uncover trends and better understand how customers thought about budgeting, automated funding, and managing negative balances. We learned that many wanted to use pockets for the Profit First accounting method.
This insight led us to shift from an open-ended flow to recommending templates that guided customers through setting up relevant features. For example, a "Operating expenses" pocket prompted users to link a virtual card for spending, while a "Team payments" pocket encouraged users to set a payroll savings goal.
Outcome
Pockets have become one of Found's most impactful features, driving increases in user balances, spending, and gross payment volume. Whale customers showed greater engagement with Pockets, using them to organize their finances in ways that best supported their business goals.
As the lead content designer, I crafted clear, benefit-focused language to make the feature intuitive and flexible. By establishing a scalable content taxonomy, I helped users easily understand and personalize their pockets, enabling functions like deposit allocations, savings goals, and templates inspired by methods like Profit First.
Through iterative releases, we tested and refined each update, ensuring it delivered real value while remaining adaptable to user feedback and behavior.
Explore other projects