Modernising travel money movement by improving conversions through usablity testing and funnel optimisation
Funnel redesign
Company
Post Office Ltd
Team
UX, Research, Development and Conversion rate optimisation teams. Owned the design execution, documentation handover, and QA through to delivery
Timeline
2022-2024
My Role
As Senior Visual UI Designer I made the card order & currency top-up funnel easier to use and faster to ship - clearer interactions, fewer doubts, and components that scaled
Key outcomes
+22% funnel completion from responsive funnel redesign (desktop + mobile)
30% Fewer support queries - saving -£3.5k per month
A/B tested high-fidelity prototypes resulting in updated cart and widget components
Elevated design system and component library with detailed design spec and QA support for dev teams
🙈 The problem
The Travel Money funnel is a core revenue journey, but friction points led to drop-offs completing transactional tasks like top-ups, especially on mobile devices which increased user doubts, putting more demand on support team resources.
Key Challenges
Outdated UI with inconsistent and unresponsive component behaviour made it difficult for users to navigate the funnel, especially on mobile.
Users missed essential info as they navigated the funnel (fees, delivery timelines, ID requirements) due to poor IA
Customer service burden increased before travel periods which gave me a tight deadline to work and manage third party stakeholders
Business Impact
Yoy increase in funnel abandonment, especially on mobile which makes up 80% of their online user base making responsive design and accessibility a critical requirement.
-£42k yearly cost increase in support travel queries that stem from UX issues
⚙️ The Process
Research & Testing
Tested two design prototypes with 10 users (ages 20–43), all booking currency for upcoming travel.
Goals: Improve visibility of critical information, build trust through consistent and responsive UI, reduce cognitive load on users as they navigate the funnel.
Prototypes
P1: Persistent (editable) cart for maximum visibility
P2: Collapsible cart at top with a summary at the end
Findings
P1 performed best for overall clarity and user confidence
Some users missed key details in P2 due to the collapsible cart which caused them to scroll more or backtrack.
SEO team involvement requested to improve delivery and collection instructions which consistently raised doubts from time-sensitive users that needed clear guidance before committing
Design Actions
Selected P1 as the base layout due to increased usability and task completion rates
Persistent/sticky cart across breakpoints means users experienced less friction in navigating the funnel
Include clearer confirmation copy from SEO team to improve user confidence
Based on third party dev requirements I redesigned the branch and home delivery sections to include radio buttons that better meet WCAG 2.2 accessibility standards and improved hierarchical structure of the results fields to better aid screen readers and general usability
🧱 Design System Contribution
Refined basket component: consistent layout, editable states, interaction cues
Brought button states (specifically radio buttons) up to date with WCAG 2.2 guidelines, which is a legal requirement.
Updated the internal design system and component library, along with detailed dev-ready component notes for faster handoff and QA
✅ The Solution
A responsive, mobile-first funnel
Clear, sticky cart with visible edit/remove states
Reusable UI patterns and components for other product journeys (e.g., Passport, Branch pickups)
Full dev-ready documentation and handover with third-party and internal stakeholders, including QA sessions
📊 Impact
Business Metrics
+22% Funnel Completion
Users moved through the funnel with fewer doubts and more confidence
30% Fewer Support Queries
Clearer language reduced post-order questions - saving approx. £3–4K/month
Faster Dev Handoffs
Design system updates and annotations sped up implementation and QA, overall meeting the pre-season deadline
🔑 Key Learnings
Content clarity builds trust
Users valued consistent responsive UI patterns to complete tasks, improved SEO helped users move through the funnel quicker and with more confidence - putting less demand on support resources.
Proven analytics
All travel money pages passed core web vital scores - performance of the travel money funnel pages went up by 26%, taking accessibility, SEO and page loading and user interaction times into account.
Room for improvement
While mobile users saw the biggest improvement at 26%, this is still significantly lower than desktop user performance and further research and design work can be done to improve these funnels as majority of the Post Office customer base are mobile users. This could be achieved through auditing the product landing page designs, running user testing sessions and offering better informational content structure and placement of CTAs that help users commit