Unclear information architecture. No targeted approach. Lack of substance on pages.
Solution
Redesigned user experience for primary ICP without aligning secondary profile.
Unifin is a debt collection and financial service agency. Their website was out of date, had unclear messaging, lacked substance, and did not keep their ICP in mind. After we overhauled their email designs, they asked us what we could do to improve their website. After a discovery session with the team we outlined their needs to: educate users on how to login and use their portal, establish trust through reviews and certifications, build a narrative that was targeted at the consumer, while still maintaining and further clarifying content for regulators and client users on separate pages.
The challenge.
Unifin serves two very different audiences.
Consumers: Debtors who are experiencing financial stress, uncertainty, and frustration.
Enterprise Clients: Expect professionalism, security, and operational scale.
Most debt collection websites lean heavily toward enterprise audiences, are content-heavy, and feel institutional, cold, and intimidating. This results in cold and intimidating consumer experiences that increase friction and reduce engagement. This increases friction and reduces consumer engagement. Voosh rethought that model, without compromising trust with enterprise partners.
Consumer
Debt collection is emotionally charged. Used empowering messaging and aspirational lifestyle imagery.
Consumers arrive anxious, defensive, or confused
Most competitors miss the mark by over-prioritizing one audience while alienating the other(s).
Enterprise
Expect trust, scalability, and professionalism.
Competitive value.
Strategy: Audience segmentation through design.
We chose bright colors which reduce anxiety, are more approachable, and promote optimism. Aspirational imagery and smiling faces in open and familiar settings to represent liberation, aspirational relief, and welcome. Rounded corners and softer UI give a feeling of welcome and friendliness. Clear, plain language makes the content approachable and clear to the user. Kept visual density reduced to improve scanability and comprehension.
Design choices were not purely aesthetic; they were psychological. Every element was selected to lower emotional friction and encourage action.
Visual style & UI.
The design system was developed in Figma with scalability in mind, ensuring consistency across pages while allowing flexibility for future growth. When using Squarespace as our site builder, we need to adhere to the component parameters that are preset and style them accordingly. This is a benefit for clients who don’t need complex design systems. It’s lean, scalable, and foolproof, making handoff to internal much easier to manage. This design system allows for future pages to be created with minimal to no design lift.
How design followed our strategy
Shape Psychology We relate shapes to things in everyday life and form associations with them. For example, sharp corners, acute angles, and narrow shapes evoke aggressiveness, movement, or authority because they remind us of swords held by leaders. Squares evoke stability because we associate them with sturdy buildings. Rounded shapes evoke welcomeness becase they remind us of a warm bowl of soup, a toy ball...you get the idea. Using this understanding of shape psychology, we decided to implement rounded buttons and image corners to address the lack of trust and approachability found in the consumer profile.
Color To further improve the trust of the consumer, we reserved light background colors to feel more inviting. The consumer is someone who is being contacted for a collection. Their feeling is already stressed, helpless, and reserved. This requires an inviting tone, which brightness does. Similar to an open window letting in sunlight, we are drawn to openness. Rather than pure white, we chose a soft light orange color which subtly complements the blue brand color and prevents the harsh contrast seen with black text on which backgrounds, which can tire out the eyes, reducing readability.
Imagery Rather than relying heavily on icons, we opted for aspirational lifestyle imagery as part of the overall brand direction for the consumer profile. We want the consumers to be able to imagine themselves in a state of relief or aspirational joy of dealing with their debt by working with Unifin. The imagery is immersive and vibrant, and gives the audience an idea of what could be.
Build & execution.
Our workflow for clients using Squarespace is lean and simple. Allowing the client to have visibility into decisions, contribute their direction, and condense the number of decisions for them to make in just two or three meetings. Meetings are broken out by discovery, content, and design.
Discovery Session: This meeting involves the client teaching us about their ICP, outlining the new needs of the site, where their current site falls short, and any specific considerations. We then take that information, research, plan, and ideate.
UX, Journey Mapping, Content Mapping: In this meeting, we review the architecture of the site and gather content in our documentation tool, Coda. Hammering out the sites architecture early on allows our developers to get started on the foundational elements of the site while our designers work on the UI, optimising the timeline. Reviewing content on a documentation tool vs designs allows all parties to focus on it and not get distracted by too many elements. Documents are the source of truth, meaning clients can leave comments notifying our team of an update in the copy, which allows us to easily update designs and the site.
High Fidelity Designs: Our designer puts together a few different design options on one or two key pages. The team at Unifin chose their favorite one, gave some feedback on specific features, and we were able to design and build the rest of those pages using their chosen style. All that was left at the end was a final QA, which is done internally and by the client in off-peak hours.
Outcomes & impact.
As a result of all these changes, we’re seeing early indicators of a reduction in complaints and an increase in users clicking the primary CTA “Make a Payment.”
Based on reviewing recorded user sessions using Microsoft Clarity, we’re also seeing more focused user sessions.
We’re seeing:
A reduction of excessive scrolling to virtually 0%.
A reduction in excessive clicks is (<1% of clickbacks and rage clicks.)
Indicating an overall more focused journey.
The qualitative user feedback is that the new website is:
“Feels more approachable.”
“Stronger alignment with Unifin's consumer-first mission.”
“The brand definitely feels like it’s matured.”
Key takeaways.
Dual-audience websites require intentional segmentation, not compromise.
Visual tone directly impacts user trust, engagement, and brand perception.
Strategy should lead aesthetics, not the other way around.
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