Designing a faster guest payment experience for prepaid users with modern payment options and split-pay flexibility.

What this project actually is:

A high-stakes prepaid payment redesign that enables guest checkout, introduces modern payment methods (PayPal / Apple Pay), and supports split payments across methods.

That is a very strong portfolio story because it includes:

• Business value → increase payment completion + convenience

• User value → pay without signing in

• Complexity → multiple payment methods

• Advanced UX → split payments

• Trust-sensitive flow → money + confirmation + error states

• System thinking → reusable payment patterns

This is way more senior than a normal “checkout redesign.”

The correct senior-level case study narrative

Use this as the core thesis:

Verizon Prepaid Instant Pay reimagines prepaid top-up as a faster, lower-friction guest payment experience—expanding payment flexibility with PayPal, Apple Pay, and split payment options while preserving trust, clarity, and completion confidence.

That sentence is gold.
That’s what the case study should orbit around.

Updated final case study structure (based on the real objective)

This is the actual structure I recommend now.

1) Cover / Hero

Title:

Verizon Prepaid Instant Pay

Subtitle:

Designing a faster guest payment experience for prepaid users with modern payment options and split-pay flexibility.

Meta row:

• Role: Product Designer / UX Designer

• Scope: Payment flow, guest checkout, IA, interaction design, component systems

• Platform: Responsive Web

• Focus: Speed, trust, payment flexibility, completion confidence

2) Executive Summary (new refined version)

Use this exact structure:

Problem

Prepaid users needed a faster way to add funds without the friction of signing in, while the existing experience lacked support for newer payment behaviors and more flexible payment combinations.

Opportunity

Expand Instant Pay into a more flexible guest checkout flow by introducing PayPal, Apple Pay, and split payment modes alongside existing refill card and debit/credit options.

Solution

I redesigned the payment experience to reduce friction, simplify decision-making, and support multiple payment pathways in a way that still feels trustworthy, understandable, and easy to complete.

Outcome

The result is a more scalable payment architecture built around speed, confidence, and payment flexibility—designed to improve completion and support a broader set of prepaid user behaviors.

3) Objective (Use your screenshot here)

Your screenshot should be used almost directly, but rewritten to sound senior.

Rewrite this section like this:

Objective

Prepaid Instant Pay was designed to make it easier for users to add funds to their account without signing in, reducing friction for a task that is often urgent and repeat-driven.

The work focused on expanding the payment ecosystem by introducing PayPal and Apple Pay alongside existing refill cards and credit/debit cards. It also explored single and split payment modes, allowing users to combine multiple payment methods in one transaction.

The design challenge was not just adding options—it was ensuring that more flexibility did not increase cognitive load, hesitation, or drop-off in a high-trust payment flow.

🔥 This last line is what makes it senior.

4) Why this mattered (Business + User framing)

This section is now much stronger because of the objective.

Example copy:

For prepaid users, adding funds is often a quick, task-oriented action—not a journey they want to spend time navigating. Requiring sign-in creates unnecessary friction, especially for users who want to complete a payment fast and move on.

At the same time, payment expectations have evolved. Users increasingly expect faster, familiar options like Apple Pay and PayPal, and some scenarios require more flexibility than a single funding source can provide.

This project aimed to balance those expectations:

• make the experience faster

• make payment more flexible

• preserve clarity and trust

• keep the flow simple despite added complexity

5) Problem framing (make it strategic)

This section should explicitly show the design challenge.

Use:

Core challenge

How might we expand Instant Pay into a more flexible guest payment experience—without turning a simple prepaid top-up flow into a complex checkout?

Design risks introduced by the new objective

• More payment options = more decision complexity

• Split payments = more cognitive load + validation complexity

• Guest checkout = less account context / fewer built-in trust anchors

• Payment flows = higher sensitivity to errors, confusion, and abandonment

This is the kind of framing that makes a hiring manager think:
“Okay, this person understands product complexity, not just screens.”

6) Existing experience audit

Now your audit should specifically focus on what breaks when adding flexibility.

Look for these in Figma:

• sign-in dependency

• limited payment methods

• rigid single-method assumption

• unclear summary / review

• weak error or recovery states

• poor handling of guest context

Section title:

Auditing the existing payment experience

Example copy:

Before introducing new payment behaviors, I audited the existing Instant Pay flow to identify where the current architecture would break under additional complexity. The original experience was optimized for a narrower set of payment paths, which meant simply layering in more options would have increased friction instead of reducing it.

That’s senior-level product thinking.

7) Information architecture (this is now critical)

Because the project has:

• guest flow

• multiple methods

• split pay

IA is a huge differentiator.

Suggested IA framing:

Existing model

• Identify account / phone

• Enter payment info

• Review

• Submit

New model

• Identify prepaid account

• Choose payment mode

  • Single payment

  • Split payment

• Select payment method(s)

• Validate amount allocation

• Review transaction

• Confirm / success / recovery

Why this matters:

You need to explicitly show:
The problem wasn’t just screens—it was flow architecture.

8) Key design decisions (updated to fit the real project)

This is your strongest section.

Use these 5 decisions:

1. Reduced guest-entry friction

Designed the experience so users could add funds without sign-in, preserving speed for a highly task-driven flow.

2. Introduced modern payment methods without overwhelming the user

Integrated PayPal and Apple Pay into the payment architecture while maintaining a clear primary action path.

3. Designed split payments as a guided interaction, not a power-user trap

Split payments can quickly become confusing. I structured the interaction to help users understand how amounts are distributed across methods, while keeping the mental model simple.

4. Rebuilt the review step around confidence

When users combine payment methods, the review step becomes more critical. I prioritized clear summaries, amount breakdowns, and visible confirmation cues.

5. Translated the flow into reusable patterns

To support future scalability, the flow was built around reusable components and consistent interaction rules rather than one-off screen decisions.

🔥 This is excellent portfolio material.

9) Split payment deserves its own spotlight section

This is the signature move of the case study.

Add a dedicated section:

Designing for split payments

Why:

Most portfolios won’t have this.
This makes your work stand out immediately.

Example copy:

Split payment introduced the highest UX complexity in the project. Unlike single-method payments, users now needed to understand:

• how payment amounts are divided

• whether all methods were valid

• whether the total still matched the required balance

• what happens if one source fails

The design challenge was to make a multi-step financial decision feel as intuitive as a single payment.

Show:

• amount allocation UI

• validation states

• edge cases

• review summary

• errors / fallback

This section alone can make the project feel much more senior.

10) Interaction design / States

For a payment project, show states like a pro.

Must include:

• default state

• selected payment method

• Apple Pay selected

• PayPal selected

• split payment selected

• amount mismatch validation

• incomplete split allocation

• payment processing

• success

• failure / retry / fallback

Example section title:

Designing for confidence across critical states

This is strong.

11) Trust, clarity, and accessibility

Because this is money, you should explicitly say:

Example:

In payment flows, trust is part of usability. Every added option increases flexibility, but also increases the potential for hesitation. I used clear hierarchy, concise labels, explicit summaries, and predictable state feedback to ensure that more capability didn’t come at the cost of confidence.

This is the kind of sentence that sounds senior/staff.

12) Components / System thinking

Your Figma has a Components Library section. Perfect.

Frame it like:

Rather than designing each screen independently, I translated the flow into a set of reusable payment patterns—supporting consistency across single-pay and split-pay paths while making the system easier to extend over time.

Show:

• payment method cards

• selected / unselected states

• split allocation inputs

• amount summary blocks

• alerts / validation

• confirmation blocks

• CTA logic

13) Outcome / Impact (honest but powerful)

If you don’t have metrics, do not fake them.

Use this:

Design outcomes

• Reduced friction for prepaid users by removing sign-in dependency for Instant Pay

• Expanded payment flexibility with modern, familiar methods

• Made multi-method and split payment scenarios easier to understand

• Increased confidence in review and confirmation moments

• Established a more scalable foundation for future payment enhancements

That’s clean and believable.

14) Reflection / What next

Example:

If this were taken further, I’d explore:

• saved preferences for repeat prepaid users

• smarter suggested split allocations

• balance-aware recommendations

• fallback handling when one payment method fails mid-flow

• A/B testing around review density, trust cues, and guest entry patterns

Your left nav should now be this (Framer version)

Use this exact list:

1. Cover

2. Summary

3. Objective

4. Why It Matters

5. Challenge

6. Audit

7. IA

8. Key Decisions

9. Split Payments

10. Interactions

11. System Design

12. Outcomes

13. Reflection

This is much better than exposing raw Figma doc names.

Most important: what NOT to do

Don’t make it look like:

• “Here are all my Figma sections”

• “Here are all my reviews”

• “Here are all my screens”

• “Here are 25 process images”

Instead:

Curate it into a story of decision-making.

That is what senior portfolios do.

The strongest one-line portfolio pitch for this project

Use this anywhere:

A guest-first prepaid payment redesign for Verizon that introduced Apple Pay, PayPal, and split-payment flexibility without sacrificing speed, trust, or completion confidence.

Put that in:

• hero

• project card teaser

• LinkedIn post

• recruiter conversations

My honest take

This project is much better than it first looked.

Because it includes:

• guest checkout

• payment method expansion

• split payment complexity

• trust-sensitive flow

• IA redesign

• systems thinking

That means this can become one of your best portfolio case studies if we structure it right.