Designing digital registers for new financial regulations
Challenge
Designing two legally compliant registers for a new financial law, balancing regulatory complexity with user-friendly experiences for solicitors and lenders.
Action
Led user research, created personas, and designed registration, search and change flows using the GOV.UK Design System, validated through iterative usability testing.
Outcome
Delivered research-backed, GOV.UK-compliant prototypes that de-risked the service and enabled a successful pre-launch handover to development.
Role | Senior UX/Product Designer
Team | Product Managers / Tech Lead / Business Analyst / Service Designer / Developers / Agile Coach
Duration | May 2023 - March 2025
All images are either royalty free stock or examples images. No imagery is directly from project work to protect privacy
01_Context & Challenge
The introduction of new legislation required the creation of two public registers, Register of Assignations (RoA) & Register of Statutory pledges (RSP). They enable any verified person, mainly solicitors and lenders, to register and search legal agreements to meet compliance obligations. Both registers had differing levels of self-service tasks for the user, with RSP also allowing users to make changes to a record entry and even remove it from the live register.
My role focused on ensuring the registers were user-centered, legally compliant, accessible and usable by a variety of professional audiences.
The challenges were:
Shaping a pre-determined solution that did not fit user needs into a usable service
Designing with final regulations unclear (only confirmed 3 months before launch)
Lack of regular communication with key external stakeholders
Balancing regulatory requirements with ease of use, while working to the best practices of the GOV.UK Design System.
I joined towards the end of the Alpha phase with testing and much of the RSP functionality to be researched and designed. I led the UX process for the Beta phase up to Live.
02_Process Highlights
-
Planned and conducted research with 50 solicitors, lenders, and citizens, including moderated/unmoderated usability tests, accessibility testing, and discovery interviews
Key pain points uncovered:
Confusing legal language across the service
No manual verification raised trust concerns about data integrity
Users uncomfortable with deviations from familiar legacy platforms (e.g.Companies House)
Optional description fields risked lowering the usefulness of search results.
Synthesised findings into actionable insights that directly shaped UX decisions and secured stakeholder alignment.
-
Co-created proto-personas with Service Designer, representing distinct user groups (e.g., legal professionals, financial admin staff, citizen groups) based on research insight
Used personas to help the wider design and delivery team understanding of user goals, pain points, and behavioral drivers.xt goes here
-
Collaborated with the Service Designer to ensure the user research insights gathered developed the service blueprints and user journeys maps
Worked with the Business Analyst to create process maps that informed the design for the:
self-serve “change journeys” for RSP record entries
internal staff “change journeys” for RoA record entries
These processes helped ensure the end-to-end was user research backed and tested.
-
Designed key registration and search flows using GOV.UK-standard components (e.g. task lists, forms, confirmation pages).
Adjusted UI details based on user feedback:
Embedded inline help for legal terms within GOV.UK form patterns.
Improved validation messages to build trust during registration.
Delivered high-fidelity prototypes for usability testing and development handoff.
03_Major Contributions & Artefacts
Research Plans & Testing Scripts
Purpose | Structured research activities to discover user needs early.
Impact | Helped the team identify specific friction points related to usability, legal terminology and notification process.
Example template of research plan
Personas
Purpose | Communicate user needs to product managers, developers, and policy stakeholders.
Impact | Kept user needs front of mind throughout design and development, helping prioritize content and flow simplification.
Example of a proto-persona
UX/UI Prototypes (GDS patterns)
Purpose | Validate registration, search and change journeys while staying within service standards.
Impact | Iterative testing improved flow clarity and reduced common user misunderstandings.
Example wireframe utilising GDS components
04_Pre-launch outcomes
Delivered research-informed, GOV.UK-compliant designs for two register services.
Reduced complexity and clarified language based on real user feedback.
Supported stakeholder confidence by grounding design choices in evidence from research and personas.
05_Reflection & next steps
What worked:
Running research early enabled faster, evidence-led iterations.
Personas were effective tools to communicate nuanced user needs across professional sectors.
Next steps:
Post-launch monitoring will capture real-world user behavior to further optimize forms, feedback loops, and content.
06_Key takeaway
This project demonstrates how a research-first approach, combined with smart application of GOV.UK design patterns, can de-risk complex service delivery for regulated environments.