Credit Card Best Practices Guide
Role: UX Writer
Timeline: 2 months (July - August 2026)
Project Background
Tools: Figma
Final Hacked Prototype
My goal was to add a "Credit Card Best Practices" page to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau website. I wanted to challenge myself by explaining a complex system like credit cards to users that don't know anything about it. I had in mind first time credit card users, and users that were never taught how they work.
Please note that because financial content is highly regulated, the proper production version of this project would be made in collaboration with compliance, legal, and financial professionals. My role was to design the information architecture and UX writing, not give personal financial advice or determine financial policy.
Writing Principles
While crafting this guide, I stuck to the following guiding principles:
Accuracy - Making sure I was presenting accurate information was top priority. I consulted multiple sources about how credit cards work and how best to utilize them before writing my own guide.
Empathy - Financial knowledge can be intimidating, and furthermore, users might be coming to this already in a tough financial spot. Thus, coming across as encouraging and non-judgemental was important.
Comprehensibility - Keeping language simple is essential for a guide aimed towards users learning about credit cards for the first time.
Encouragement - Giving users motivation as they take critical steps towards their financial well-being.
Information Architecture
First, I need to consider what overall environment I wanted this information to be in. I had chosen the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The site already has a comprehensive list of financial terms and guides users can dive into, but it also lacked exactly the kind of guide I intended to write: the best practices for credit cards.
Although the website has dedicated many pages to financial terms, I decided that for the sake of comprehensibility, I'll design and write in a manner that assumes that the user will only see the page I'm making.
Having to jump between pages for clarification can get annoying, and potentially discouraging for users simply trying to know one thing but finding out they have to learn an entirely new vocabulary before they can understand anything.
I decided to organize the information thusly:
- Short Blurb on why this is important
- Never missing a minimum payment
- Keeping utilization below 30%
- Paying off as much of the monthly bill as possible
- Informing about grace periods
The short blurb introduces the user to the topic, and reminds them why they are here and why they should keep reading to be informed.
I had chosen to prioritize paying off the minimum payment first because of the following:
- Payment history the largest factor in credit score (41-35%)
- It's more sensitive to users potentially in a tight financial spot
A lot of guides I've come across start with saying it's best to pay off your total monthly bill, and it is, something I go on to specify later. However, presenting the information this way can be discouraging to those that may have had a bad month since they may end up feeling like they can't do things the "correct" way.
Thus, by putting the priority of simply paying the minimum amount to the front, I hope to encourage users to do what they can rather than make them feel like they need to meet certain requirements.
Next came the second largest factor to credit scores (30-20%), the amount one owes. I had included the formula in this section for the sake of making sure the page was complete.
It's only after this I present that paying off the total monthly bill is best. I word it in a way where it's a deduction to reach rather than a standard to meet. And by specifying that paying as much as you can is just as good, I hope users will be motivated to gradually work towards their debt.
Finally, I tell users about credit card grace periods as a final bit of motivation. This informs new card holders to be diligent in paying off everything they owe, and long-time card holders to consider fully ridding themselves of the debt.
Final Considerations
I had added a hyperlink at the end of the guide called "How to Restore Your Grace Period!"
I wanted to write a separate general guide for long-time credit card users about how to budget their credit cards to rid themselves of the debt. However, as I dove into the research I realized this guide is something that needs to be done with a team.
Not all credit cards calculate interest the same way, not all providers have the same policy, not all of them have the same fees, and there's also the personal circumstances of the users that adds another layer to all this.
While I do like the idea, I believe it would be especially remiss to not discuss a guide of this nature with experts first. Thus, I included it as a potential avenue to explore.
Refelction
This project was an important exercise in synthesising complex information into something simple that users can simply read in one go and get all the information they need to accomplish their goals.
It also reminded me that my role as a writer and designer will be contingent on proper understanding on a subject matter, which sometimes means diving deeper into research on my own, sometimes means deferring to be educated by fellow professionals.