UX Isn’t Magic
Why fintech experiences fail without product and tech in sync - and how to fix it with clear principles, strong orchestration, and cross-functional thinking.
Hi one-fs crew 👋
As my friend Martin debunks marketing fairytales over at Uncharted, I thought it was time to tackle one of design's own. This week we're unpacking what it really takes to build a great fintech experience. Not just good design, but proper alignment between tech, product and UX. Because design alone can’t save you from a slow backend or a confusing product structure.
In this edition:
➡️ Why UX alone can't carry a broken product or tech stack
➡️ The most common (and invisible) experience blockers in fintech
➡️ The real job of a Chief Experience Officer
➡️ How Spotify and Duolingo align design, product and tech with a clear North Star
➡️ A practical checklist to audit and orchestrate your experience
❤️ If you enjoy this one, give it a quick like - helps more fintech friends discover it.
Let’s get into it.
UX isn’t magic: What great fintech experiences really depend on
Most fintech teams know UX matters. They invest in sleek interfaces, run usability studies, and hire top designers. But too often, they hit a wall: even with a strong UX team, the experience still feels broken.
Here’s the truth. UX alone can’t fix:
⚙ A sluggish backend
🧮 A fragmented product logic
🧶 A reliance on white-labelled tools stitched together with duct tape
If you want to create a standout experience, design is just one piece. The others are product and tech - and they need to move in sync.
What kills fintech UX?
Start with the basics: latency, third-party dependencies, broken data models. These aren’t design problems - they’re engineering ones. But the user doesn’t care. If they’re waiting 4 seconds for their balance to load, the experience is broken.
Now think about the typical fintech tech stack. APIs on top of APIs, often including a mix of white-labelled features to save time. But stitching products together this way creates friction. Authentication issues, lost context, and duplicated data entry become normal. That’s not a design failure. It’s an orchestration failure.
Then comes product
A bloated product structure will confuse even the smartest users. Too many steps. Invented terminology. Too many choices. Clever flows that hide fees or limits. Design can’t untangle business logic that’s fundamentally user-hostile.
Product teams often optimise for internal incentives: profitability, retention, or activation. That’s fine. But the way they execute often adds mental load to users.
Good design can smooth things out, but it can’t rewrite the product logic or fix a disjointed flow across screens. Only tight collaboration can do that.
What great experiences depend on
A three-way alignment: smart product logic, solid tech, and intuitive design. All three need to work together - not in isolation.
That’s what makes the difference between a “usable” experience and a “wow” one. The experience team’s job is to orchestrate how everything fits together, not just how it looks.
Who owns the experience?
Ideally someone who understands all three layers. Someone who can talk to engineers, challenge product trade-offs, and guide design with context. A Chief Experience Officer should know their way around APIs and architecture, understand business logic, and value usability.
You don’t have to be a specialist in every field. But you do need to speak the language. And today, AI makes it easier than ever to bridge those gaps - if you have the curiosity and foundation.
How do you fix a broken experience?
Let’s get practical.
1. Define a North Star and an experience principle
Start by defining your North Star. A clear definition of success that aligns your team around long-term value for users. That’s your “what”.
Then define your “how”: the Experience Principle. This guides how features should feel.
Spotify’s North Star was "Time Spent Listening". Their experience principle was "Personalisation at scale". That made magic-feeling discovery a design and product priority.
Duolingo’s North Star is "Weekly Active Learners". Their principle: "Make learning feel like a game". That’s why streaks, gems, and animations are everywhere.
Once you have a clear North Star and one strong experience principle, define 3-5 more to support it. These shape trade-offs, priorities, and what 'great' means for your team.
2. Audit your current experience
Look at your end-to-end user journey. Where are the seams? Where is the user forced to do the work? Where are you blaming design for what’s actually a tech or product limitation?
Good audits don’t just flag UI issues. They trace them back to root causes - often deeper in the stack or logic.
3. Orchestrate across functions
Break down the walls between product, tech, and design. Bring engineers into user interviews. Let designers into architecture reviews. Encourage PMs to prototype.
You’re not just designing screens. You’re shaping systems. And that requires shared context.
Great UX doesn’t come from one team.
It comes from teams who think and build as one.
Until next time - Dom 👋
Thanks for reading. Hit reply if you’ve got thoughts – or DM me here if you’re on the web.
About Dom Monhardt, founder of one-fs.com
I am a French technologist and product leader living in Dubai, with 15+ years of experience in building cutting-edge and innovative digital experiences.
I am interested in the intersection of business, design, and technology and am deeply passionate about the fintech and digital banking world.