Opportunity

Bringing Structure and Context to Installment Payments

As non-qualified plans introduced more flexible installment options, participants were left without a clear way to understand how their payments were structured over time. Information existed, but it was fragmented, inconsistent, and often optimized for internal operations rather than participant comprehension. This created an opportunity to define a dedicated experience that could translate complex installment logic into something participants could confidently understand and act on.

Gaps Identified

No centralized view of active installment streams across plans
Lack of clarity around progress within a stream (how many payments remain)
Inconsistent visbility into processed vs. upcoming payments
Overreliance on dense tables and transactional records without meaningful hierarchy

These gaps made it difficult for participants to answer basic questions about their installments without external support.

Why Existing Solutions Fell Short

Existing surfaces focused on individual transactions rather than the installment journey as a whole. Payments were displayed as isolated events, without context around sequencing, remaining installments, or future expectations. While this approach satisfied record-keeping needs, it failed to support participant understanding—especially as installment configurations became more complex across plans and class years.

Who This Feature Is For

This experience is designed for participants enrolled in non-qualified plans who receive payments through installment streams. These users need a clear, self-serve way to understand which installments are active, where they are in each schedule, and what to expect next—without requiring deep financial knowledge or assistance from support teams.

Problem Framing

Defining the Core Challenge and Validating Early Assumptions

Before designing a solution, it was necessary to clearly articulate the problem this experience needed to solve. Because this was a net-new surface, there was no single failing screen to point to—only a growing gap between how installment data was stored and how participants understood it. This section outlines the core problem we aimed to address, along with the assumptions and hypotheses that guided early decision-making.

Core Problem Statement

Participants receiving non-qualified installment payments lack a clear, participant-friendly way to understand their installment streams over time. While payment data exists, it is presented in a fragmented and transactional manner that does not communicate which installment streams are active, how far along participants are in each stream, or when to expect future payments. As installment configurations increase in complexity, this lack of context creates confusion and undermines participant confidence.

Assumptions & Hypotheses

Because this was a net-new experience, early decisions were guided by a set of working assumptions about participant needs and behaviors. These assumptions helped shape initial structure and prioritization, while the hypotheses defined what we believed would improve clarity and confidence if validated through testing. Together, they provided a framework for designing with intent rather than opinion.

Assumptions
Hypotheses

Participants primarily want to understand status and progress, not underlying financial mechanics
Viewing installment payments as a sequence over time is more meaningful than viewing isolated transactions
Participants need different levels of detail depending on context, requiring a progressive disclosure approach
A single, centralized experience would reduce confusion and reliance on support channels

If participants can see which installment streams are active and how many payments remain, they will feel more confident navigating their payments
If processed and upcoming payments are clearly distinguished, participants will better understand timing and expectations
If installment information is grouped by plan and class year, participants will be able to orient themselves more quickly
If details are available on demand rather than upfront, participants will be less likely to feel overwhelmed

Goals

Aligning Participant Needs with Platform Clarity and Scale

With the core problem defined, the next step was aligning on what success would look like for both participants and the platform. Because this experience needed to support complex installment structures over time, the goals focused on clarity, orientation, and scalability—ensuring the solution could meet immediate participant needs while remaining flexible enough to evolve.

User Goals

The experience was designed to help participants quickly understand which installment streams are active, where they are within each schedule, and what to expect next. By clearly distinguishing processed payments from upcoming ones and surfacing progress within a stream, participants can confidently navigate their installment information without needing external support or deep financial knowledge.

Platform Goals

From a platform perspective, the goal was to reduce participant confusion while establishing a scalable foundation for presenting installment data across plans and class years. The solution needed to support consistent installment logic, accommodate future complexity, and provide a structure that could evolve over time without requiring significant rework.

Design Principles Guiding Decisions

Decisions were grouned in usability best practices including:

Prioritizing orientation before detail
Focusing on progress over isolated transactions
Using progressive disclosure to manage complexity
Designing for scale to ensure the experience supports platform growth

Experience Flow

Guiding Participants from Orientation to Understanding

User Journey

Participants begin the experience by narrowing their view using the Plan and Class Year filters at the top of the page. These controls allow them to quickly focus on the installment streams that are relevant to their situation. Once filtered, the page presents content grouped by plan, followed by class-year cards that organize installment information into manageable sections.

Within each class-year card, participants can expand accordions to view installment streams and payment activity over time. This structure allows them to scan high-level information first—such as whether a stream is active and how many payments remain—before choosing to engage with more detailed payment history or upcoming schedules. The experience supports quick orientation while enabling deeper exploration only when needed.

Filter and focus

Participants begin by selecting a Plan and Class Year, narrowing the experience to the installment streams that apply to them.

Orient to active streams

The page surfaces installment activity grouped by plan, allowing participants to quickly see which streams are active and how many payments remain.

Review payment status and timing

Within each class-year section, participants scan processed and upcoming payments to understand what has already occurred and when the next payment will run.

Expand for details as needed

Participants use accordions to access additional payment details without losing high-level context, engaging with deeper information only when necessary.

Key Moments

Initial orientation: Participants immediately understand which plans and class years contain installment activity.
Progress awareness: Visual cues and sequencing communicate where participants are within each installment stream and how many payments remain.
Timing clarity: Clear differentiation between processed and upcoming payments helps participants anticipate what will happen next.
Controlled detail: Accordions allow participants to access additional information without overwhelming the page or obscuring high-level context.

Edge Cases Considered

Multiple concurrent installment streams: Participants may have several active streams across different plans or class years.
Mixed payment types: Installments, partial distributions, and lump sums can appear within the same plan history.
Fixed vs. calculated installments: Pending payments may or may not have known amounts at the time of display.
Paused or canceled installments: Streams may temporarily stop or convert to a lump sum while preserving payment history.
Election changes over time: Future payments may reflect new rules while previously processed payments remain unchanged.

Key Features

Structuring Installment Information for Clarity and Scale

The final concept focused on features that helped participants quickly understand their installment payments while supporting the complexity of non-qualified plans. Each feature was designed to reinforce orientation, reduce cognitive load, and scale across plans, class years, and installment configurations without introducing unnecessary friction.

Plan and Class Year Filters

Allow participants to quickly narrow the experience to relevant installment streams and reduce visual noise when multiple plans are present.

Plan-based content sections

Organize installment information by plan, providing clear context and helping participants understand how payments relate to specific elections.

Class Year cards with accordion groups

Break installment activity into manageable segments, enabling users to scan high-level progress before choosing to explore details.

Installment progress indicators

Clearly communicate how many payments have been completed and how many remain within each installment stream.

Processed and upcoming payment visibility

Distinguish between completed and scheduled payments so participants can easily understand timing and expectations.

Toggleable detail visibility

Enable participants to show or hide accordion details based on their comfort level, supporting both quick scanning and deeper review.

Validation Plan

Confirming Clarity, Confidence, and Scalability Through Testing

Because this was a net-new experience, validation focused on ensuring participants could accurately interpret installment information without guidance. The goal of testing is to confirm the concept supports the core user needs—identifying active streams, understanding progress, and anticipating the next payment—while also validating that the structure scales across common and edge-case configurations.

How I Would Test This

with participants who have installment payments (or close proxies), using realistic scenarios such as:

“Which installment streams are currently active?”
“How many payments do you have remaining in this stream?”
“When was your last payment processed and when is your next one?”
“Find the payment that was paused/canceled and explain what happens next.”

where participants explain what they believe is happening (great for validating confidence and reducing misinterpretation).

for layout variants, such as accordion default state (open vs closed) or placement of progress indicators.

Keyboard navigation for accordion behavior, focus states, screen reader labels for installment progress and statuses.

to confirm accuracy of labels, statuses, and the phrasing of fixed vs. calculated footnotes.

What I'd Measure

for the four core needs: active streams, progress/remaining, processed payments, next payment date

for locating “next payment” and “payments remaining”.

can the participant correctly interpret fixed vs calculated payments, paused/canceled states, and what counts as “processed”?

after each task (e.g., 1–5: “How confident are you that you understood your installment status?”)

where participants misread status, confuse plan vs class year, or assume amounts are final when calculated.

Risks to Validate

e.g., confusing “2 of 10” as remaining vs completed.

Plan vs Class Year vs account group/stream.

when gross/net is blank—users may assume missing data is an error.

if too much detail is hidden, users may feel forced to expand everything; if too much is shown, they may feel overwhelmed.

paused/canceled streams and conversions to lump sums may be misunderstood without additional context.

large numbers of streams/payments could increase cognitive load and make filtering or scanning less effective.

Reflection

Designing Structure Under Ambiguity and Time Constraints

This project required balancing ambiguity, complexity, and speed while defining a net-new experience with no existing pattern to iterate on. The reflection below captures what worked well, where I would refine the approach in future iterations, and the skills that were strengthened through this work.

Strong stakeholder alignment early in the process helped clarify priorities and prevent scope creep despite the compressed timeline. Focusing the experience around participant orientation—rather than attempting to expose every possible detail—allowed the concept to remain understandable while still supporting complex installment logic. The decision to organize content by plan and class year created a structure that scaled naturally across use cases and edge cases.

With more time, I would have validated the information hierarchy earlier through lightweight usability testing before moving into higher-fidelity concepts. I would also explore alternative ways to surface upcoming payments without introducing additional cognitive load, particularly for participants with multiple active streams. Earlier collaboration with engineering on data availability could further refine how calculated installments and edge cases are represented.

This project strengthened my ability to define structure in ambiguous problem spaces, make intentional scope tradeoffs under tight timelines, and design rule-driven experiences that balance clarity with flexibility. It also reinforced my approach to stakeholder communication—aligning teams around what not to build in order to deliver meaningful progress quickly.

Thank you for reading!

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Net-New

Installment Payment Experience

The Problem

The Challenge

My Approach

The Outcome