In collaboration with the U.S. Treasury, Mastercard set out to modernize how Social Security recipients - often unbanked or underbanked - receive their benefits.

The existing process relied heavily on mailed checks and clunky call-in systems for even basic tasks, such as checking balances

Estimated waste = $1B over 10 years

1. Change benefit payments from mailed physical checks to direct deposits on reloadable prepaid Mastercard cards

2. Design a digital product experience that makes it:

   • Easy for recipients to access and manage their funds

   • Cost-effective and scalable for the government

   • Secure, accessible, and trustworthy for a population often excluded from tech innovation

• Designed and facilitated user interviews and usability sessions

• Developed the discussion guide to explore:

  • The kind of help recipients would regularly have available to them

  • Money management behaviors

  • Pain points of the current system and prototype app

  • Trust signals

• Screened participants to reflect our target users:

  • Older adults

  • Adults with physical and mental disabilities

  • Lower-income individuals

  • Those with low digital literacy

• Collaborated with the market research vendor to coordinate logistics and participant sourcing

• Synthesized findings for the product and strategy teams to share the next phase of prototyping and development

• “Trust” beats “Innovation”: Users were more concerned with knowing their funds were safe and reachable than having fancy new features

• Having a smartphone doesn’t equal “digital literacy”: Many participants had mobile phones but didn’t trust apps, which reframed our onboarding assumptions

• Checking balances was an anxiety-relief ritual - keep balance persistent and easy to access: For many, calling in to check their balance was a daily anxiety-relief habit. We needed to honor that behavior in the design, not erase it

• It had to work equally well for both benefit recipients and caretakers

The resulting product changes helped streamline onboarding, reduce anxiety through thoughtful UI language, and emphasized balance visibility front-and-center

The U.S. Treasury adopted the updated platform, and the Direct Express program became a national benchmark for digital benefit distribution

• 95% user satisfaction

• $1B+ estimated savings over 10 years

• Adopted as the default payment method for millions of federal benefit recipients

This was the project that made me truly believe and understand how much UX Research matters. It’s not about making things easier to click - it’s about dignity, trust, and systemic impact

Even as a junior employee, I saw how the right questions could shape a product that changes lives