Student Loan Lab

Role

Senior UI Designer
Senior Graphic Designer

Contribution

Brand & Logo design
Product Vision & Thinking
UX & UI Design

Product

Marketing Website
Concept Product Demo & Prototypes

Users

College Students
Loan Agents

Client

Navient

The Challenge

First-time student loan borrowers often face a confusing, disconnected experience filled with technical jargon, outdated systems, and impersonal customer support. Navient wanted to change that. Through a partnership with Deloitte Digital, they launched Student Loan Labs, a concept-driven prototype designed to test new tools, gather feedback, and reimagine how borrowers engage with their loans. The goal: make the student loan experience clearer, kinder, and more empowering, starting with students at the very beginning of their journey.

Task

As Senior UI Designer, I was responsible for creating the entire visual language for the Lab—from branding to product interfaces. I led the design of:

The Student Loan Labs brand identity, logo, and color system
The promo site showcasing the Lab’s mission and tools
UI and visual systems for four concept products:
- Labs Connect – A mobile app for loan management
- Labs Guide – A dashboard for exploring repayment options
- Labs Support – A modern customer service experience

I collaborated daily with developers and PMs to bring each concept to life as a functional, testable demo.

Action

Starting with Navient’s core brand colors, I developed a modern visual system that felt trustworthy but fresh—using lighter gradients, simple iconography, and clean typography.

Labs Connect: I contributed to design a mobile dashboard, alerts center, and login experience with biometric security. Navigation was kept intuitive for on-the-go users.

Labs Guide: I contributed in building a visual system for comparing repayment plans, including an interactive slider that helped users see how small payment changes impacted long-term interest and payoff timelines.

Labs Support: Working closely with a UX designer, I designed UI for co-browsing, callback scheduling, and smart tagging so agents could offer support without repetition or long holds.

Results

Navient officially launched the project as Navient Labs, featuring a working promo site and functional demos for stakeholder feedback. The results:

Cross-channel experience vision: The suite showed how mobile, web, and chat tools could connect into a seamless user journey
Stakeholder alignment: The demos were used to align internal teams and educate policymakers and advocates
Adoption and launch: Several Lab concepts moved into real development pipelines after the initial pitch

Personally, this project sharpened my skills in visual storytelling and system design, taking ideas from abstract concept to polished prototype that sparked real-world change.

Contact me

Email: zmohtadi@gmail.com
Linked In: in/zmohtadi
Dribbble: dribbble.com/zmohtadi