Designing financial flows.
The flows every financial-services team rebuilds from screenshots and legal PDFs — KYC, disclosures, adverse action, privacy consent, authentication. Each one here carries a Regulatory Breadcrumb: the rule that shapes it, what the rule actually requires, and the point where the rule stops and your design judgment starts.
3 patterns are free to read below. The full library — every breadcrumb, plus the Figma file with annotated screens — is on Gumroad.
KYC: the staged identity flow and its holding state
Why account opening splits into stages with a “we’re verifying you” holding state instead of one form and an instant yes.
Read the breadcrumb →APR disclosure: welding the terms to the number
Why the APR, fees, and “this rate can change” language stay attached to the rate everywhere it shows — in-product, in ads, in the offer email.
Read the breadcrumb →Adverse action: the “why you were denied” screen
Why a decline names specific reasons and points to the credit bureau — and why “you didn’t meet our criteria” isn’t allowed.
Read the breadcrumb →Privacy consent: the notice and the sharing controls
Why a bank shows a mailed-style privacy notice and specific opt-outs instead of a single cookie-style “Accept all”.
Preview →Accessible authentication: no puzzle in the sign-in path
Why login lets you paste the one-time code, keeps targets finger-sized, and never hides a puzzle in the flow.
Preview →Why this exists
I've spent most of my career designing for regulated products — defense compliance, healthcare, insurance, banking. The hardest part was never the screen. It was working out which rule forced the screen to look that way, and how much room the rule actually left me. This library is that research, written down.
Design Breadcrumbs, the newsletter this came from→