Shawn Tallet
← Selected work

Quicken

Designing content across a growing fintech ecosystem

Personal finance is regulated, technical, and easy to get wrong. Through a company-wide rebrand and three product launches, I helped shape the messaging, UX content, voice rules, and reusable content patterns that kept a complex product ecosystem clear and consistent for millions of users.

Company
Quicken
When
2022 – 2026
My role
Senior content strategist and UX writer
I owned
Messaging hierarchy and copy, UX copy, voice rules, and reusable content patterns
Collaborators
Product marketing, product design, UX, and compliance
Status
Shipped
Read as

A1

The problem

A legacy desktop brand was becoming a multi-product fintech platform, and its language hadn't caught up.

For decades, Quicken meant boxed software, desktop finance tools, and a red logo on the shelf. As it grew into a digital-first platform with several products, each with its own audiences, the old feature-first, transactional language no longer reflected the experience or the ambition. The company-wide rebrand in 2023 reset that, and I was part of the team that carried it into product, web, and lifecycle content.

Every word also had to survive a regulated environment: clear, accurate, and approved by compliance, without losing warmth.

A2

The homepage

Feature lists became outcomes. By 2025, the homepage led with one promise, four pillars under it, and proof under each.

Quicken homepage hero: Do more with your money. Quicken delivers all the data, insight, and functionality you need to keep your finances moving forward. Start with Simplifi and See other plans buttons, beside two phones.
Fig. A2.1The homepage in December 2025. The promise leads; the product proves it.
PromiseDo more with your money
PillarConnect & track all your accountsProof: sync with 14,000+ financial institutions
PillarSpend & save with confidenceProof: Spending Plan
PillarTap into insights you can act onProof: future-focused reports
PillarBuild the future you wantProof: investments and retirement
Fig. A2.2The messaging hierarchy, pulled out of the page: every section ladders up to one promise.
Homepage bento section with four cards: Connect and track all your accounts; Spend and save with confidence; Tap into insights you can act on; Build the future you want.
Fig. A2.3The four pillars as they appear on the page.

I grounded language decisions in user intent rather than feature exposition: simplifying financial concepts, prioritizing outcomes over functionality, and writing copy that felt supportive rather than instructional. I worked closely with design so words and visuals could each carry the story, and iterated with compliance to keep clarity without giving up warmth.

What was mine. I wrote the messaging hierarchy and copy: the top-level promise, four supporting pillars, proof points, section narrative, and calls to action, developing them with product marketing, design, and compliance. The design team owned the visual system, page composition, responsive behavior, and final UI execution. We iterated together in Figma so the words and visual hierarchy supported the same story.

A3

The launches

Three launches: Quicken Simplifi, then Quicken Business & Personal and Quicken LifeHub in late 2025. Each needed messaging that made it read as distinct, and all three beat their launch forecasts.

  • Quicken SimplifiEveryday money, looking ahead

    The messaging leads with outcomes people feel every day: always know what's left to spend or save, and see where cash flow is heading.

  • Quicken Business & PersonalOne app, kept separate

    The messaging names the problem directly: business and personal finances in one app, with nothing mixed up. The proof is concrete: invoicing, cash flow reporting, and Schedules C and E at tax time.

  • Quicken LifeHubThe complement, not a competitor

    A product that isn't about money had to sit inside a money brand. The line that drew the boundary: "Quicken Simplifi handles the money. Quicken LifeHub handles everything else."

Two plan cards. Quicken Simplifi, mobile and web: always know what's left to spend or save, total investment portfolio management, projected cash flow, reports and alerts. Quicken Business and Personal, new, all in one: manage business and personal finances in one app, track cash flow, invoicing tools, built-in Schedules C and E.
Fig. A3.1Simplifi and Business & Personal side by side. Each card leads with a different job, so the two read as distinct choices rather than tiers of the same thing.
Homepage module: New. Quicken LifeHub. The new way to organize all life's info. The perfect complement to Classic or Simplifi. Always be ready for life's big events, emergencies, and everyday moments. Keep vital info safe, secure, and shareable. Beside it, an app sidebar with IDs, Medical, Passwords, Pets, Home and Property, Legal and After I'm Gone.
Fig. A3.2LifeHub on the homepage, introduced as "the perfect complement to Classic or Simplifi."

B1

The component system

One feature message, built once as a set of modules, then reused across web, lifecycle email and social.

Web feature module for Spending Plan: Always know what's left to spend and save, with Get started and Learn more buttons beside two phones showing the Spending Plan.

WebThe Spending Plan feature module. Eyebrow, promise, benefit, action: the same anatomy every feature follows, in duplex, accordion and card layouts.

Before the system, each channel rebuilt the same feature story from scratch. With a shared set of modules, web, lifecycle and social could all pull from the same approved message and layout logic: faster production, consistent content, and room to scale across more than one product line.

What was mine. I defined the content anatomy and editorial rules: what each module needed to communicate, the copy hierarchy, naming, approved variants, and how one product story should adapt across web, lifecycle email, and social. The design team created the visual components and production assets. I wrote and populated the modules and worked with the designers to make sure the patterns held across formats.

B2

Methodology

Lead with the outcome. Build a hierarchy, not a pile of claims. Write it once and reuse it everywhere.

  1. Outcomes over features

    Say what changes in someone's financial life, then show the feature that does it.

  2. A hierarchy, not a pile of claims

    One promise per page, pillars that ladder to it, and proof under each pillar.

  3. Write once, reuse everywhere

    Feature messaging lives in modules that web, email and social can all assemble from.

  4. Voice that survives compliance

    Clear, accurate and warm, iterated with compliance instead of sanded down by it.

  5. AI as an accelerator, not the author

    I built reusable LLM workflows grounded in product facts, positioning, and editorial rules to accelerate ideation and QA. Human editorial judgment remained responsible for every final line.

B3

Outcome

3product launches
3/3beat their launch forecast
1content system across web, email and social

A modernized brand, clearer products, and a content system teams could build on instead of rebuilding.

B4

Reflection

The launches beat forecast, but the more durable result was a content foundation teams could reuse instead of rebuilding.

If I did this again, I'd establish the shared content system and its governance earlier. The rebrand, product launches, and channel work were happening under active deadlines, so parts of the system emerged while we were already using them. I would create a canonical source of truth for positioning, approved proof points, reusable modules, and ownership sooner, making it easier for teams to build consistently without reopening the same language decisions.

I'm proudest of helping a complex, regulated product ecosystem speak with greater clarity without flattening the products or overpromising. The work held together across the homepage, product launches, onboarding, lifecycle, and social, while giving each new product a distinct reason to exist. All three launches exceeded their forecasts, but the more durable result was a content foundation teams could reuse instead of rebuilding from scratch.