US Bank Partner Card

Replace Your Card — Rebuilding Trust Through Simplicity

The Partner Card platform is a division within US Bank that powers co-branded credit cards for companies who want to offer cards to their customers. When I joined the team, the customer experience for replacing a card—whether lost, stolen, or damaged—was fragmented and poorly rated. The app had a 1.8 rating.

My goal: improve the replacement experience across web and mobile while supporting a longer-term transition to a single unified flow.

Project Highlights

An overall 4.6★ app rating (up from 1.8)
$25 saved per unnecessary card
Flows optimized for mobile and accessibility
Calm-first design for high-stress user moments

Discovery: Emotional Stress is a Design Problem

Card loss is more than an inconvenience—it’s often tied to moments of stress, vulnerability, or uncertainty. I read about the cognitive impact of anxiety, especially how it affects comprehension and decision-making. I gathered user stories from real situations: cards that never arrived, wallets that were stolen, and moments when people panicked—afraid they wouldn’t be able to pay for something important.

These stories grounded my design in trauma-informed UX thinking. I treated clarity and calm pacing as accessibility issues—and aligned each flow with those needs.

Design Strategy: Calmer Flows, Smarter Options

I designed flows for two key scenarios:

Replace Lost or Stolen Card
Replace Damaged Card

Each version was adapted for both web and mobile, with platform-specific interaction needs and A11Y requirements.

Lost Stolen & Never Recieved

For Lost/ Stolen & Never Received, I:

Customized the review transaction time frame to mirror the date the incident occurred to reduce irrelevant transactions
Implemented the Back button to allow customers to adjust and edit information through the 7-step process
Added alerts to provide a smoother customer experience
Created a multi-digital card experience for customers when they receive their new card number to meet A11Y requirements

User
Web/Desktop

Cardholder type
Multi-card holder

Replace card damaged

For Card damaged, I:

Reduced total steps and decision points
Introduced a critical option: letting users choose not to reorder a physical card for themselves. This saved the bank $25 per card and reduced unnecessary waste.
Added expiry-based logic for cards close to renewal
On the final screen, we reminded users that their digital card was instantly available—a friction-reducer for users, and a profitability win for the business.

Digital version
Web/desktop and mobile app.

Use case scenarios
Single card holder

Execution: Built for Development at Scale

I created annotated wireframes and user flows for both web and mobile versions, detailing accessibility guidelines and logic for edge cases. These annotations ensured consistency across platforms and helped engineers deliver faster, with fewer revisions.