First Abu Dhabi Bank ⋅ Dubai First
Opportunity
Dubai First (DF) is a credit card and consumer finance company that was acquired by First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB).
The acquisition opened the door to reimagine the Dubai First mobile app, bringing new features, better performance, and a significantly improved user experience.
Goals
Create a new experience for Dubai First customers with new features, better performance, and a redesigned mobile app.
My role as UX Design Director
- Led experience strategy and product roadmap
- Defined design direction for the redesigned app
- Established the design system
Team composition:
- 3 Product Designers
- FAB stakeholders
The previous Dubai First app
Understanding the existing product was the starting point, identifying what worked, what frustrated users, and what needed to be left behind entirely.
Research
User interviews were conducted to assess feature prioritization through a willingness-to-pay methodology.
This helped us understand which features mattered most to customers, and how to balance user expectations with business priorities.
Design system
I established a reusable component library to ensure consistency across the app and enable cross-product implementation throughout FAB.
The system covered buttons, forms, cards, navigation, and more, giving the team a shared language and reducing friction in handoffs.
Buttons
Forms
Credit cards
Designs
User research informed feature prioritization while maintaining business alignment.
The redesign covered the full customer journey, from home and cards to transactions, split bills, filters, and profile management.
Home
Home ⋅ scrolled
Cards
Categories
Split bill
Filters
Help
Profile
Illustrations
A custom illustration style was developed and integrated into the Dubai First brand language.
These illustrations were used to communicate key moments in the user journey, empty states, confirmations, and delivery updates.
Final Thoughts
The most challenging part wasn't designing the product itself, it was aligning all the different departments, as they were working in silos.
Breaking down those silos and creating shared ownership across teams turned out to be as important as the design work itself.