Huge Capital Redesign

Huge Capital is a funding platform built to help small businesses grow — offering fast, transparent access to capital without the traditional hurdles.

Role

UI UX Designer

TimeLine

April – May 2025

Tools

Figma, Balsamic, Figjam

Project Type

Bootcamp project, UX Academy

The Problem

Users often struggle to secure business funding because:

• 🧱 Traditional lenders feel outdated and inflexible

• 🕗 Long wait times slow down growth and momentum

• 🌀 The process is confusing, full of jargon, and hard to navigate

• 😓 Many business owners feel overlooked or unsupported

The Solution

Huge Capital simplifies access to funding by:

• ⚡ Delivering fast, modern capital options for small businesses

• 📱 Designing an interface that feels clean, trustworthy, and easy

• 🔎 Letting users explore offers without hurting credit scores

• 💬 Building trust through clarity, speed, and personalized service

The Research

For the Huge Capital project, I conducted user research to uncover pain points, expectations, and real behaviors around applying for business funding. I focused on interviews with small business owners and startup founders to understand their biggest frustrations, needs, and motivators when seeking capital. Through these conversations, I identified patterns around application confusion, trust concerns, and decision-making friction. These qualitative insights helped guide the product direction toward building a more transparent, trustworthy, and user-friendly funding experience.

User Interviews

To understand how small business owners seek and apply for funding, I conducted interviews with 7 participants. Key findings:

  • Many users feel overwhelmed by complex financial terms and cluttered layouts

  • Speed and clarity were top priorities — users want to understand if they qualify within seconds

  • Trust signals like testimonials, clear contact info, and consistent branding increased user confidence

Competitive Analysis

I reviewed the websites for OnDeck, Thrive Market, and Credibly to analyze their tone and structure. Key takeaways:

  • OnDeck used simple card layouts and strong call-to-actions that felt actionable

  • Credibly relied heavily on trust signals like customer reviews and partner badges

  • Thrive Market balanced professionalism with approachability through friendly copy and soft visuals

User Personas

Jordan Hanson

Age: 32
Occupation: Auto Body Owner
Location: Las Vegas , NV
Family: Married , 1 toddler

To make sense of the interview data, I created an affinity map — a method for synthesizing user quotes by grouping related thoughts, pain points, and behaviors. This allowed me to organize raw feedback into clear, actionable patterns.

Affinity Map

Insights

After completing the interviews, I created two user personas to represent the primary mindsets, motivations, and challenges uncovered during the research — helping guide the design toward solutions rooted in real business owner needs.

Goals:

Get access to funding without wasting time or damaging his credit

Expand his business with another van and hire a part-time admin

Maximize productivity without burning out

Pain Points:

Hates when sites feel “too slick” or pushy

Doesn’t trust companies that don’t show faces or testimonials

Will leave instantly if the site demands too much info up front

Amanda Liu

Age: 26
Occupation: Online boutique owner (ecommerce
Location: Boise , ID
Family: Lives with sister

Goals:

Understand loan terms without speaking to a salesperson

Save time with a fast, guided process

Secure funding to boost inventory and prepare for holiday sales

Pain Points:

Gets overwhelmed by sites that feel too generic or too corporate

Needs to see upfront requirements to avoid wasting time

Leaves if trust isn’t built within the first few scrolls

I organized the observations into clusters like benefits, common findings, pain points, and possible solutions. This helped highlight what mattered most to users and revealed key opportunities for the product.

Huge Capital is grounded in key research insights, including

  • Users want fast clarity on what kind of funding the site offers and whether they qualify.

  • Trust indicators like testimonials and logos boost confidence.

  • Clean, modern design signals legitimacy and ease of use.

  • Unclear content quickly creates doubt or drop-off.

After completing the affinity map, I moved beyond research and into the next phase — Prioritization & Roadmapping — where I translated insights into actionable design decisions.

Prioritization & Roadmapping

After identifying key insights, I organized potential features and interactions to ensure the experience stayed simple, intentional, and user-driven. This phase helped me clarify what should be prioritized early and what could be introduced later — laying the foundation for a focused and intuitive flow.

I grouped the features into four categories to guide decision-making: must-haves, nice-to-haves, delightful extras, and future ideas.

Must have

These are foundational features
necessary for the MVP:


• Account creation

• Start application form


• Funding offer preview


• Document upload steps


• Simple approval process


• Instant loan dashboard

Updating Profile Info

Nice to have

Features that enhance the
experience but aren’t required to
launch:


• Quick funding estimator

• Business tips section


• Smart application nudges

Delightful

Features that delight and engage
users but are not critical:


• Welcome animation


• Success celebration


• Personalized support

After finalizing the feature set, I mapped out key task flows to visualize how users would interact with each core function. This helped ensure each experience was intuitive, focused, and aligned with the app’s purpose.

Task Flows

Viewing task History

Future Ideas

Future enhancements to explore
after launch:


• AI-based loan matching


• Pre-approved funding alerts


• Expansion milestone tracker

To visualize how users interact with key parts of Huge Capital’s site, I mapped out two task flows: one focused on how users learn about the brand’s credibility, and another on how they navigate the funding application process. These flows highlight natural entry points, clarify conversion paths, and identify small moments to reinforce trust and usability.

With priorities and flows locked in, I moved into branding and wireframes — shaping the look and feel to match the app’s calm, motivational purpose.

Branding and wireframes

With the product vision set, I began sketching out wireframes to shape the core user experience. My focus was on creating layouts that felt trustworthy, professional, and easy to navigate — critical qualities for a funding platform like Huge Capital. The wireframes allowed me to test structure early and gather feedback without distractions. I also developed a supporting color palette that felt bold and dependable, helping reinforce Huge Capital’s identity throughout the interface.

Before designing the interface, I started by exploring a color palette that could visually express Huge Capital’s core values — trust, strength, and clarity. I landed on a deep, confident blue as the foundation, layered with cooler, muted tones that soften the experience without losing authority. Together, these shades create a visual language that feels dependable yet modern, helping users feel calm, informed, and in control from the very first impression.

Colors

I selected this color palette because it struck the right balance of professionalism, trust, and clarity. The deep blues convey reliability and confidence, while the softer blue-greys add a sense of calm and approachability. Together, these shades create an identity that feels established yet welcoming—helping users feel secure and ready to take the next step.

With the brand direction in place, I sketched out key screens to explore layout and user flow. These lo-fi wireframes helped me quickly test structure and interaction without focusing on visuals—laying the groundwork for the high-fidelity design phase.

Lofi Sketches

Once the structure felt right on paper, I shifted to shaping the visual language that would define the experience.

Hifi Wireframes

With the Colors and wiireframes in place, I translated my ideas into high-fidelity wireframes. This step brought structure and style together, allowing me to refine layout, interaction, and flow — ensuring each screen felt purposeful and aligned with the uplifting Just One experience.

View Prototype

These high-fidelity wireframes brought everything together — simple structure, credibility-driven content, and focused interactions. Every element was crafted to reinforce Huge Capital’s core values of trust, clarity, and ease — turning the site into a product that felt confident, not complicated.

With the core experience fully designed, it was time to test how it actually worked for users. I focused on refining the application flow, reducing hesitation points, and ensuring Huge Capital felt streamlined and trustworthy throughout the process — from landing to loan submission.

Iterations and Testing:

Once the high-fidelity designs were complete, I moved into usability testing by interviewing and observing real users as they interacted with the prototype. The goal was to uncover friction points, see what felt intuitive, and hear honest reactions to the flow and features. I combined task-based testing with quick interviews to get both behavioral insight and verbal feedback. These sessions revealed what was working and what still needed refinement — helping me prioritize meaningful improvements backed by real usage.

To clearly capture insights from these sessions, I created a scorecard to track task success, timing, and direct user comments.

Usability Test Scorecard

From this testing, it became clear that while users found the core experience intuitive, there were valuable opportunities to improve clarity and build trust at key moments. I focused my iterations around three main areas that directly addressed user feedback: adding a confirmation step to the CTA, reinforcing credibility with mission-driven messaging, and refining task labeling for better clarity. These changes were designed to make the experience feel more transparent, reliable, and aligned with how users assess legitimacy in financial tools.

Iterations

I. Credibility Boost

Users weren’t convinced by the site’s trustworthiness at first glance. To address this, I surfaced a real-life testimonial quote at the top of the About page — giving potential customers immediate social proof and grounding the brand in real-world success.

Conclusion

Designing Huge Capital was about more than creating a modern funding experience — it was about empowering small businesses to feel confident and supported as they grow. Every part of the process, from research to refinement, was shaped by listening to real users and aligning with what they truly needed: speed, clarity, and trust. Through thoughtful design and iteration, Huge Capital became a product that meets users where they are — helping them move forward with confidence.

Next steps

  • Test updated homepage copy to evaluate clarity and emotional resonance

  • Add more FAQ entries and video testimonials to boost trust on the About page

  • Refine application form layout to further reduce drop-off during submission

  • Explore ways to highlight Huge Capital’s human side — potentially through founder messaging or customer spotlights

Key Takeaways

  • users value trust signals early — credibility must be built within seconds

  • Small layout shifts and real quotes can dramatically improve clarity and engagement

  • A strong “About Us” section is more than just background — it reassures and converts

  • Listening to users removed assumptions and revealed overlooked moments of doubt