ClearScore — Recommendations that read as advice, not advertising

Context

Turning a free utility into a trusted guide

ClearScore gives people free access to their credit score and report, then earns revenue by recommending credit products matched to their profile via Open Banking.

I led design on the personalised recommendations and credit-building journey — the part of the product that has to turn a free utility into a trusted financial guide without ever feeling like an upsell.

Challenge

Advice, not advertising

Users came to ClearScore to check a number, not to buy a credit card — so anything that felt like a sales pitch risked breaking the trust the whole business model depends on.

The challenge was designing recommendations that felt like advice, not advertising, while still driving the marketplace conversions that fund the free product.

Approach & Process

Confidence beat price

Research started with a blunt question to users: “does this feel like it's for you, or for them?” That framing exposed which UI patterns read as helpful (contextual, score-linked explanations) versus which read as sales (generic banner ads). I redesigned the recommendation surface around eligibility transparency — showing users why a product matched their score before showing the product itself — and tested it against the incumbent banner-style layout with a live A/B split.

One insight drove the whole redesign: users trusted a recommendation more when they understood their own likelihood of approval than when they saw a lower headline rate.

Impact

The more honest design also won commercially

The eligibility-first layout outperformed the incumbent on both trust perception and marketplace conversion — a rare case where the more honest design also won commercially. Approved applications rose as users applied to products they were actually likely to get, rather than aspirational ones they'd bounce off.

Learnings & Reflection

Transparency is the highest-leverage lever

Fintech design lives or dies on perceived motive. The interface has to constantly answer “who is this for?” before a user will act on it.

My reflection from this project: in trust-sensitive categories, transparency isn't a compliance requirement bolted onto design — it's the highest-leverage design lever you have.