Upleveling KB Bank financial calculator
Role
UX designer — Redesign 13 types of financial calculators
Timeline
July – December 2023
Skills
Interaction design, UX strategy, Wireframing, Prototyping, Cross-functional communication
Team
1 PM, 5 UX Designers, 4 UI Designers, 15 Engineers, 8 Clients at KB Bank
Context
KB Financial Group, one of Korea’s largest financial conglomerates, operates 12 subsidiaries, each with its own content platform—making it difficult for users to access financial tools in one place. To streamline this experience, KB launched “KB Think,” a centralized responsive website built on Adobe Experience Manager.
On this platform, I led the end-to-end redesign of the financial calculator, a tool commonly used for savings planning, mortgage calculations, and currency exchange.
Input & output challenges
Users experience friction throughout the process:
entering large Korean numbers is tedious, and the overwhelming raw results make it difficult to understand what to focus on.
How might we help users enter large numbers quickly
and understand the key info without
being overwhelmed by raw data?
Research-informed design
Through 8 user interviews with a clickable Figma prototype for a week, I explored challenges across both input and output flows.
Input
Quick number button
Users struggled with entering large Korean numbers, so I introduced Quick number button. AI-assisted pattern analysis revealed that users completed input tasks significantly faster when shortcut values increased from left to right.
1M
100K
10K
Output
Calculation results
Users felt overwhelmed by dense raw data. Among 2 result-presentation approaches, they preferred insight-first results, with raw data available only when needed.
Insights
Raw data
Solution
Streamlined input & Insight-driven output
I redesigned both input and output flows by simplifying number entry and restructuring results to highlight key insights, with raw data available only when needed.
Input
Quick number entry
To simplify large-number entry, I introduced shortcut buttons and arranged them in increasing value order, enabling faster and more intuitive input.
Output
Insight-first results
I adopted an insight-driven results structure that highlights key takeaways first, while keeping raw data accessible through a bottom sheet when users need more detail.
Introducing responsiveness
The existing PC-only pop-up design presented a significant accessibility barrier on mobile devices. I tackled this by proposing a responsive solution, ensuring optimal viewing across both mobile and desktop platforms.
Impact
The redesigned calculator improved the experience across both input and output flows:
Input
Shortcut buttons reduced the time and friction of entering large numbers.
Output
Insight-driven results helped users understand key information more quickly, with raw data available on demand.
38%+
Growth rate of calculator users
200,000 Users+
Monthly users of KB Think.com
AI Opportunity
Evolving the calculator
beyond static workflows
I explored how AI could further elevate the calculator experience. For calculation results, AI could generate contextual explanations, personalized recommendations, and conversational insights.
I pitched these ideas to the team as a future direction—transforming the calculator into an intelligent assistant rather than a static tool.
Takeaways
Balancing essential vs. secondary features earlier would have enabled us to ship a functional input/output experience sooner. This reinforced the importance of prioritizing core UX problems—such as input friction and overwhelming output—before adding enhancements.
User feedback revealed that friction existed at both ends: users needed a faster way to input numbers and a clearer way to interpret results. Understanding these dual pain points guided the direction of the final design and emphasized the value of holistic user research.
Collaboration with the Data team helped uncover micro-behaviors—such as number-shortcut placement preference and how users navigate raw data. These insights informed both input optimization and output restructuring, ultimately improving engagement and reducing cognitive load.
