Problem

The core issue:

The system did not clearly communicate state, urgency, or required action. This resulted in:

• - Unintentional subscription lapses
• - Increased support volume
• - Low trust in account accuracy
• - Reactive rather than proactive user behavior

Signals observed

• - Elevated support tickets related to trial expiration and billing confusion
• - Qualitative feedback indicating low confidence in account status
• - High revisit rates to account pages without task completion

Problem Focus

Users could not reliably answer:

• - What is my current subscription state?
• - When does it expire?
• - What happens if I take no action?

Expiration information existed, but it was fragmented, low-salience, and inconsistent across the UI.

Design Constraints

The design:

- Had to support multiple subscriptions per account

- Needed to communicate urgency without creating panic

- Required a scalable system that could support future plans and trials

Approach

I reframed the subscription screen as a state-aware system, not a static list.

Key decisions:

• - Treat expiration as a first-class system signal, not secondary metadata
• - Align visual urgency, content tone, and action affordances
• - Optimize for glanceability before detail

Solution

- Introduced a persistent, contextual notification banner for trial and subscription expiration

- Implemented inline expiration states directly attached to each subscription

- Designed a time-based urgency model (31+ days, 30–25 days, 24–1 days, expired)

- Applied consistent language and color semantics across all expiration states

Content Design Rationale

- Used explicit dates rather than relative time to reduce interpretation errors

- Shifted from informational copy to decision-support language

- Ensured content scaled across banners, inline labels, and future system notifications

Impact

Subscription status became immediately legible at both page and item level. Users could identify risk and required action in seconds rather than minutes, and the system supported proactive renewal behavior without coercive patterns.