Mikaela Haage

Internship Sambla

Next

Sambla

Internship

Six weeks in Sambla’s New Adventures team, where I designed a brand-new mortgage application from first wireframe to developer handoff, and ended up drawing a character for a widget.

Deliverables
Mortgage Application, Prototypes, Illustrations, Widget Character
Duration
6 Weeks
Team
New Adventures Team
Two phones on a podium showing the mortgage application: the start page “Bolån – jämför och hitta den bästa räntan” and the first step, “Om dig och ditt boende”.

The brief

New Adventures builds new products for the company. My main task was a mortgage application, something Sambla didn’t have before. The process covered benchmarking, iteration and design, and ended with a handoff to the developers.

Low-fidelity wireframes of the mortgage application.
Low-fi
Mid-fidelity screens of the application: household, finances, expenses and loans.
Mid-fi
High-fidelity screens in Sambla’s colours, starting with “Om dig och ditt boende”.
Hi-fi

Close to the developers

I got up to speed quickly and finished the application in about two and a half weeks, ahead of plan. Working closely with the developers taught me how the backend shapes design decisions: every choice in a form affects what data is collected and how it’s put together.

We didn’t run our own user interviews. The work built on earlier research and the developers’ experience, a reminder that the process often has to adapt to the circumstances.

The whole application flow laid out screen by screen.

A good job

Along the way I made an illustrated animation, a small “good job” to the user once they were done. It spread internally and was picked up by several departments, and my role grew: next came illustrations for the upcoming rebrand.

The “good job” animation: a thumbs up as a red ring draws itself around it.
Line-drawn hand icons for marital status: Ensamstående, Gift/Sambo and Skild. Line icons for the application’s choices: Flytta mitt bolån, Köpa bostad and Lånelöfte. The marital status icons in colour. The choice icons in colour.

Sam the monkey

I also created a character for a widget that was to be pitched further within the company: a monkey whose mood follows your savings, from “Save soon?” to “Hurray!”, explored in poses, colours and states. The work has carried on after the internship.

A pink monkey swinging on a purple vine: the character I drew for the widget.
Six widget cards where the monkey’s mood follows the savings: “Save soon?”, “Have you saved yet?”, “Good job!”, two “Keep on trying” and “Hurray!”. Eight of the monkey’s expressions without text: happy, cheering, peeking, curious, bored, crying, surprised and defeated under a spotlight.

Key learning

Show what you do, even outside your own area. Sharing my work opened doors I hadn’t counted on. I’m taking with me how much it matters to be flexible, take initiative and share actively.

The Ensamstående icon: hovering over it turns the line drawing red and pink, with sparkles around the hand.
Next project