While we didn't initially have in-country design resources, lightweight user research afforded us competitor app experiences for teardowns. These informed early prototypes, which we user-tested with UK residents of varying financial backgrounds and BNPL familiarity. Through this research, we discovered that UK residents are quite used to lengthy, friction-filled onboarding flows — giving us an opportunity to decrease friction and offer a better experience, even while meeting additional regulatory requirements.

To get buy-in from US-based product stakeholders, we intentionally showed them competitor flows first to help them understand the increase in friction before presenting our own UK designs.

Given the leanness of the team, we largely opted for a "lift and shift" approach — replicating the US product experience in the UK. But novel challenges required a more finessed plan. I chose which UX departures were significant enough to designate as P0 versus those that could wait until post-launch, securing P1 pledges from product owners wherever I could.

For UX localization deemed critical for launch, I employed a content-first approach to help cross-functional teammates think beyond the limitations of existing flows — allowing us to explore more creative options than might otherwise have been possible.

I found outside resources and tools to begin building a repeatable localization process, educated the broader design team as I learned, and discussed the build process with engineers to move localization upstream in the workflow. In presentations to leadership, I advocated for new tools and software add-ons — ultimately receiving approval to upgrade Figma licenses for modes and plugins that connect to the company's translation management platform.