Scaling Design for
Conversion Growth.

Trustly

UX Strategist / Advisor

My role

I joined Trustly to establish and grow its in-house design function. This meant not only recruiting and building a high-performing team, but also embedding an experience-driven mindset across the company.

Day to day, I worked on both the strategic level - aligning design with Trustly’s key business bets - and the tactical level collaborating hands-on with teams to refine and innovate the checkout experience. Our work led to smoother, faster payment flows, greater user trust, and ultimately higher conversion rates for merchants.

FINTECH

DESIGN STRATEGY

DISCOVERY

PRODCUT LED

HANDS-ON

LEADERSHIP

TEAM BUILDING

PROTOTYPING

VISION

WEB

Opportunities

Building Design & Research Capability

How might we recruit and grow an in-house design and research team that elevates Trustly’s product quality?

Experience-driven

How might we align design goals with Trustly’s business bets so experience and strategy reinforce each other?

Experience-driven

How might we align design goals with Trustly’s business bets so experience and strategy reinforce each other?

Seamless

How might we design smoother payment flows that increase trust and reduce drop-off?

Seamless

How might we design smoother payment flows that increase trust and reduce drop-off?

Cross-Functional Collaboration

How might we build stronger relationships with product, engineering, and compliance to co-create better experiences?

Cross-Functional Collaboration

How might we build stronger relationships with product, engineering, and compliance to co-create better experiences?

Measurable progress

How might we create UX outcomes measurable so all teams can see progress and value?

Multiple Markets

How might we adapt the checkout experience across multiple markets without losing consistency?

Multiple Markets

How might we adapt the checkout experience across multiple markets without losing consistency?

Approach

Embed an Experience-Driven Mindset

Run experience vision workshops with leadership to align design with Trustly’s business bets. Introduce UX outcomes as shared goals. Share research insights regularly to build empathy for users across disciplines. Create embedded design roles within product teams to work closely with PMs and engineers.

Design Foundation

Recruit & onboard key design and research talent with complementary skills. Set up design ops basics: shared Figma libraries, research repository, and lightweight design guidelines. Design a flexible checkout framework that adapts to local regulations and payment expectations while keeping a unified Trustly feel.

Design Foundation

Baseline

Map the end-to-end payment journey across markets to spot friction points. Set a baseline by understanding the current user experience and identify and solve unmet needs to unlock value for users and the business.

Baseline

Discovery

Establish continuous user research and create new concepts to improve customer experiences while driving measurable business value for merchants. Prototype smaller improvements (copy, interaction design) while also exploring larger redesign concepts.

Iphone and iPad mockup of new Trustly design

Impact and Outcomes

High-Performing Design Team

Established Trustly’s first in-house design and research function. Hired and developed a multidisciplinary team that became embedded in product squads. Design became a strategic capability, not just a delivery function.

High-Performing Design Team

Unlocked isolation

Continuously influencing the movement in optimizing product organizational structures and becoming more experience-driven. Unlocking isolations between areas and distributing designer skills across the organization's product teams.

Unlocked isolation

Business value

Our team improved the checkout user experience for several markets. We identified and removed user pain points based on analytics and qualitative user research insights. We increased conversion rates and showed that design brings value to the business by leveling up the user experience.

Experience-Driven Mindset

During my time at Trustly I built strong relationships and influenced the mindset around user experience with product and engineering peers. I helped stakeholders to succeed with different sales-driven initiatives by moving the focus to a more human-centered approach.

Experience-Driven Mindset

Cross-Functional Alignment

Created stronger collaboration between design, product, engineering, and compliance. Used research and experience maps as shared alignment tools. Resulting in better product decisions, faster delivery, and fewer reworks.

Cross-Functional Alignment

Optimized Checkout & Payment Flows

Simplified key steps in the online banking payment process across markets. Reduced friction in authentication and confirmation steps leading to faster, smoother checkout. Resulting in Higher conversion rates for merchants and improved end-user trust.

Glimpse of Outputs

A Trustly concept scanning QR-code to Pay

Showing Challenges to reach a shared vision