Monzo

Modern digital banking is built on trust, clarity, and speed. For Monzo, every interaction inside the app needs to feel intuitive while still introducing customers to new features and products. As Monzo continued to expand its offering, the team faced a familiar challenge for fast growing product organisations. How do you explain complex financial tools in a way that feels friendly, lightweight, and unmistakably on brand.

Monzo uses Lottielab to bring motion directly into the product experience. The goal was not decoration, but communication. Animations needed to guide users, reinforce understanding, and make moments of discovery feel rewarding.

The challenge: Explaining more without adding friction

As Monzo introduced new tools such as budgeting features, premium accounts, and security controls, static UI alone was no longer enough. Text heavy explanations risked being skipped, while traditional video was too rigid for in-product use.

The design team needed a way to create animations that could live natively inside the app, adapt to different screen sizes, and be iterated on quickly as features evolved. Crucially, these animations had to feel like a natural extension of Monzo’s visual language rather than marketing assets dropped into the product.

Why Lottielab?

With Lottielab, Monzo designers were able to design and ship lightweight Lottie animations directly into the app experience. These animations are used at key moments, such as introducing a new feature, explaining how a tool works, or celebrating successful actions.

Because Lottielab is built for product teams, designers could prototype animations alongside the interface itself. This made it easier to fine tune timing, pacing, and transitions so the motion supported the message rather than distracting from it. Animations could be tested, updated, and reused across different parts of the app without slowing down engineering.

When asked about why they chose Lottielab, Benjamin Strak, a Lead Product Designer at Monzo, said it was because of the speed and ease of use of the tool. "Lottielab is the tool I’ve been waiting for. It’s now super quick to tweak and edit existing animations and I look forward to kicking off animation projects rather than the mild dread that comes with opening AfterEffects".

Making features easier to understand

One of the biggest benefits Monzo saw was clarity. Short, purposeful animations helped users understand what a feature does before they ever interacted with it. For example, subtle motion could show how money moves between pots, or how a new control affects account behaviour.

These visual explanations reduced cognitive load and helped users feel confident exploring new tools. Instead of reading instructions, customers could simply watch and understand.

Monzo also uses in-product animations to introduce new products and account upgrades. Rather than relying on banners or long descriptions, animations provide a sense of personality and momentum. They draw attention without demanding it.

Because Lottielab animations are lightweight and performant, they fit seamlessly into onboarding flows and promotional surfaces inside the app. This approach helps new offerings feel like a natural progression of the Monzo experience rather than an interruption.

The result: Faster iteration, consistent quality

From an operational perspective, Lottielab enabled closer collaboration between design and engineering. Designers could deliver production ready animations that developers could drop straight into the app. This reduced back and forth and ensured what shipped matched the original intent.

By using Lottielab to create in-product animations, Monzo turned motion into a functional part of product design. Features became easier to understand, new products felt more approachable, and key moments inside the app gained warmth and clarity.

For Monzo, animation is not just about delight. It is about helping customers feel informed and in control. Lottielab provided the tools to make that possible at scale, directly inside the product experience.