FIS Memento used statistical models, machine learning, and novel data visualizations to help banks detect and recover fraudulent check transactions. As the solo designer embedded in a 50-person engineering organization, I helped turn discovery artifacts into production software while building collaborative practices that made complex fraud signals easier for teams and investigators to act on.
Challenge
- Help the banking industry fight check fraud
- Develop cutting edge ML models and data visualizations to navigate them
- Solo designer in a team of 50
Approach
- Define a triad of product lead, engineering lead, and design lead
- Establish myself as hybrid designer/developer sitting reporting to the head of Engineering
- Iterate at high fidelity in live code to speed up cycles
Outcome
- Core team awarded 5 patents
- Memento acquired by FIS in 2012 and is now FIS Memento
The goal
The goal for the product design itself was to use novel data visualizations to help agents find the needle in the haystack: cases that truly needed their attention.
Discovery
There were no dedicated researchers at Memento, so I built up a regular user testing cadence inspired by Steve Krug’s concept of DIY usability testing — every two or three weeks we would set aside an afternoon to bring in users and subject matter experts for usability tests. I would host a post-mortem with the core stakeholder group after each session with the goal of agreeing on three things we would fix or enhance based on the tests.
This became the foundation of my belief that design is a team effort, and anyone can be coached into the thought processes and artifacts used to create experiences.
High fidelity
I sat within the front end engineering team and reported to the VP of Engineering. I participated in the team sprint and standup cadences, as well as working development stories related to the Memento platform’s Flex frontend.
Project links
Patents
- “System and method for presenting fraud detection information”
- “System and method for presenting quasi-periodic activity”
- “System and method for presenting suspect activity within a timeline”
- “System and method for visualizing checking account information”
- “System and method for presenting multivariate information” (filed)
- Helped turn discovery artifacts into production fraud-detection software.
- Enabled investigators to navigate machine-learning signals through novel data visualizations.
- Contributed to a core team awarded multiple patents before Memento was acquired by FIS.