Redesigning shared expenses with clarity, flow, and trust.

Consumer Product

Fintech

Habit-driven UX

Splitwise Reimagined

Splitwise Reimagined

Platform

Mobile Interface

Type

Consumer Product

Redesign, Fintech ·

Individual Project

My Role

End-to-end UX Research & Design — audited existing usability gaps, identified behavioral friction points across user groups, and redesigned the core expense-sharing flow around conversation and closure

Skills

UX Research,

UI Design,

Interaction Design,
Micro-interaction UX,

Design Systems,

Fintech UX

Overview

Splitting expenses should be effortless. Instead, Splitwise's transaction-heavy interface fragments context so completely that users can't tell what they owe, to whom, or whether anything was ever resolved. Money is trust and the design was quietly eroding both.

Outcome

Rebuilt the experience around conversational context instead of isolated transactions with persistent settlement states, clearer splits, and a flow that guides users all the way to closure. Because a well-designed split isn't about dividing money. It's about distributing clarity.

Rewriting the rules of shared expenses

less noise, more action.

Rewriting the rules of shared expenses

less noise, more action.

CONTEXT

CONTEXT

From roommates sharing bills to coworkers organizing lunch runs to students tracking weekly groceries, people rely on apps like Splitwise to manage group expenses.



From roommates sharing bills to coworkers organizing lunch runs to students tracking weekly groceries, people rely on apps like Splitwise to manage group expenses.



From roommates sharing bills to coworkers organizing lunch runs to students tracking weekly groceries, people rely on apps like Splitwise to manage group expenses.


But while the intent is clear, the experience often is not.

But while the intent is clear, the experience often is not.

What should be a simple and fast transaction becomes a source of confusion, delayed payments, and unnecessary group texts.

What should be a simple and fast transaction becomes a source of confusion, delayed payments, and unnecessary group texts.

Lets say its the end of the week.

Lets say its the end of the week.

You open your expense app to check the final split with your group, but the interface overwhelms you and you still have questions like..

From roommates sharing bills to coworkers organizing lunch runs to students tracking weekly groceries, people rely on apps like Splitwise to manage group expenses.


USER GROUPS

Expense sharing, shaped by different user groups

PROBLEM

PROBLEM

The current expense-sharing experience lacks clarity. Transaction heavy UI like Splitwise fragment context, making it harder for users to track, understand, and act on shared costs.

The current expense-sharing experience lacks clarity. Transaction heavy UI like Splitwise fragment context, making it harder for users to track, understand, and act on shared costs.

The current expense-sharing experience lacks clarity. Transaction heavy UI like Splitwise fragment context, making it harder for users to track, understand, and act on shared costs.

SOLUTION

SOLUTION

A redesigned system prioritizes conversational context over isolated transactions reducing friction, surfacing actionable insights, and aligning interface flow with real-life expense behavior.

A redesigned system prioritizes conversational context over isolated transactions reducing friction, surfacing actionable insights, and aligning interface flow with real-life expense behavior.

A redesigned system prioritizes conversational context over isolated transactions reducing friction, surfacing actionable insights, and aligning interface flow with real-life expense behavior.

INTRODUCING

INTRODUCING

INTRODUCING

Actionable
Home Screen

Actionable
Home Screen

Actionable
Home Screen

A clean top summary bar shows your "Receive" and "Pay" amounts with a dropdown for quick access, followed by categorized recent transactions with filters.

A clean top summary bar shows your "Receive" and "Pay" amounts with a dropdown for quick access, followed by categorized recent transactions with filters.

Settle up

with contextual clarity

Settle up

with contextual clarity

Settle up

with contextual clarity

A transaction view with a persistent “Unsettled Payment” sticky bar, enhanced “Settle-up” CTA, personal remarks, and a clear payment confirmation flow opens when a conversation is clicked.

A transaction view with a persistent “Unsettled Payment” sticky bar, enhanced “Settle-up” CTA, personal remarks, and a clear payment confirmation flow opens when a conversation is clicked.

Overlapping payments

Overlapping payments

The redesign resolves key usability tensions by reframing financial interactions around structure, visibility, and completion. Instead of isolated actions, users now experience a cohesive flow from input to closure, reducing friction in both behavior and interface.

The redesign resolves key usability tensions by reframing financial interactions around structure, visibility, and completion. Instead of isolated actions, users now experience a cohesive flow from input to closure, reducing friction in both behavior and interface.

Learnings

Learnings

Money between friends isn't a math problem. It's a social contract with a UI on top.

The most revealing moment in this project wasn't a usability test. It was a conversation with someone who would quietly stopped using Splitwise, not because it was broken, but because opening it felt like receiving a bill from a friend. The interface had turned a shared experience into a ledger. That's a design failure no feature can fix.


What the redesign taught us is that financial tools carry emotional weight that their interfaces almost never account for. The "Settle Up" button isn't just a CTA. It's the end of a shared story; a trip, a dinner, a month of living together. Treating it as a transaction is a misread of what the moment actually means to the user.


Clarity in fintech isn't about showing more data. It's about knowing which data earns attention at which moment, and having the restraint to hide the rest. Every screen that overwhelms a user into inaction is a design that chose completeness over comprehension.


The best financial interfaces don't feel like finance at all. They feel like resolution.

A well-designed split isn’t about dividing money but about distributing clarity.

A well-designed split isn’t about dividing money but about distributing clarity.

Redesigning shared expenses with clarity, flow, and trust.

Redesigning shared expenses with clarity, flow, and trust.

Redesigning shared expenses

with clarity, flow, and trust.