Motivation
We wanted to be the first bank in the market to provide a fully digital experience for requesting and approving loans. This would provide a superior CX to the rest of the competition, and faster loan delivery to our trusted business customers.
My Roles & Responsibilities
I took ownership of the project as a lead UX designer, even though I was initially a secondary UX/UI designer.
◾ I led the multi-national team during the entire Product Design lifecycle as a Lead Product Designer.
◾ I defined the Product Design process and delivered the final solution
◾ I held all the workshops, including the Discovery workshop, Stakeholder interviews and presentations, and Usability Testing sessions.
◾ I collaborated with: 1 Product Owner, 1 UX/UI Designer, +7 C-level stakeholders, and development teams for the product.
◾ I defined the Product Design process and delivered the final solution
◾ I held all the workshops, including the Discovery workshop, Stakeholder interviews and presentations, and Usability Testing sessions.
◾ I collaborated with: 1 Product Owner, 1 UX/UI Designer, +7 C-level stakeholders, and development teams for the product.
Business Goals
The team had clear business goals for this project:
🎯 Allow for a fully digital experience, so that customers can access funds without visiting the retail office,
🎯 Simplify the loan application process, to improve the conversion rate and improve the CX,
🎯 Implement the digital verification, as this would remove the need to visit the retail office during the crucial step in the journey, thus further simplifying the whole process, and
🎯 Create a unified visual language, as the same codebase would later be used for other products in other countries.
🎯 Simplify the loan application process, to improve the conversion rate and improve the CX,
🎯 Implement the digital verification, as this would remove the need to visit the retail office during the crucial step in the journey, thus further simplifying the whole process, and
🎯 Create a unified visual language, as the same codebase would later be used for other products in other countries.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders wanted to move fast - as they always do, right? 😅
But it was understandable, as before my joining the progress was poor. There was only a vague, low-fidelity wireframe of essential steps in the digital experience. The team wasted a couple of sprints with almost no results to show.
But it was understandable, as before my joining the progress was poor. There was only a vague, low-fidelity wireframe of essential steps in the digital experience. The team wasted a couple of sprints with almost no results to show.
There was also a clear lack of design ownership and project leadership. I quickly realized that stakeholders either lacked the knowledge or the willpower to lead this project. The communication was poor, it was a disaster ready to happen.
I took ownership of the design process and decided to split stakeholders into two groups:
◾ International team, that would approve project phases and monitor the overall progress, and
◾ Local team, consisted of 4 Loan Directors, and a Product Owner. They were hands-on and got expertise with loans. These were my go-to people who would actually shape the product.
◾ International team, that would approve project phases and monitor the overall progress, and
◾ Local team, consisted of 4 Loan Directors, and a Product Owner. They were hands-on and got expertise with loans. These were my go-to people who would actually shape the product.
Product Design Process
I was dealing with a local team that wasn't too familiar with the typical design-thinking approach. I introduced the methodology, and we agreed to do the following phases:
🔍 Discover & Research (Discovery workshop, user & stakeholder interviews, existing data analysis, journey mapping)
🗺️ Define the problem (Defining the business goals, product roadmap, persona creation, information architecture)
🛠️ Prototype (Mockups, UX & UI design)
🧪 Test (Usability testing)
♻️ Refine (as needed)
📦 Deliver
🗺️ Define the problem (Defining the business goals, product roadmap, persona creation, information architecture)
🛠️ Prototype (Mockups, UX & UI design)
🧪 Test (Usability testing)
♻️ Refine (as needed)
📦 Deliver
Discovery Workshop
Preparation
I wanted to start with a one-day discovery workshop and tackle the first two steps of the process. We had to do as much as we possibly could in this one day because some stakeholders had to travel in from other towns. As a preparation for this workshop, I wanted stakeholders to have a round of User Interviews and bring the findings into the workshop. I helped by creating questions to ask their customers:
◾ Which bank products are you using?
◾ How often are you using Internet Banking?
◾ How was your experience with loan requests?
◾ How are you tracking your loan status?
◾ What do you lack in Internet Banking the most that could simplify tracking of your loan status?
◾ How often are you using Internet Banking?
◾ How was your experience with loan requests?
◾ How are you tracking your loan status?
◾ What do you lack in Internet Banking the most that could simplify tracking of your loan status?
I also pulled data from the Support team, which gave additional insights into the more negative aspects of the CX. This allowed us to better understand our users, and we had enough data to proceed with the workshop.
The workshop day
On the day of the workshop, the team was super optimistic.
We started by presenting the findings. We wrote them all down on stickies and threw them on the whiteboard. We did a card sorting exercise, the patterns started to emerge, and we agreed that:
◾ Users loved the idea of a fully digital experience, without the need to visit a retail office to get the funds.
◾ Users might want to game the system and use it to find the "sweet spot" for our systems' limits and their maximum allowed loan.
◾ The verification process had to be simplified, as this was the most confusing part of the existing flow.
◾ Users didn't like the paperwork, finding it hard to keep track of the loan status via physical evidence.
◾ The Copy had to be simplified, and every aspect explained. We had no room for ambiguity.
◾ The Visual language had to be simple, steps clearly visible, and we should support tablets and smaller screen sizes.
◾ Users loved the idea of a fully digital experience, without the need to visit a retail office to get the funds.
◾ Users might want to game the system and use it to find the "sweet spot" for our systems' limits and their maximum allowed loan.
◾ The verification process had to be simplified, as this was the most confusing part of the existing flow.
◾ Users didn't like the paperwork, finding it hard to keep track of the loan status via physical evidence.
◾ The Copy had to be simplified, and every aspect explained. We had no room for ambiguity.
◾ The Visual language had to be simple, steps clearly visible, and we should support tablets and smaller screen sizes.
All these findings seem fairly common, But learning about these aspects from their customers made every stakeholder aware and hyper-focused on solving these issues. This was even more important later in the process when harder business decisions had to be made in order to allow for a fully digital experience. Stakeholders themselves fought for it.
Personas
Next, we created our single customer persona. We didn't go for multiple personas as our customer base wasn't too big, and from the data we gathered, we didn't see the need for it. But the team became aware that this might change with time.
Journey Maps
With the customer in mind, we next focused on the customer's journey. We created simple but effective customer journey Maps, one for the existing journey and one for the future, best-case scenario journey. As it turns out, the team was aiming for the reduction of retail store visits from 2, to only 1, or even zero.
Information Architecture
Next, I wanted to tackle the existing information architecture. The team had an Excel spreadsheet with all the required input fields/data for the loan. Previously, these fields would be populated by a retail officer. But now, we had to present this data to the customers. Since we were dealing with existing customers, they would simply verify the existing information.
But, the team also mentioned future scope, where we would open this product to new-to-bank customers. In this case, there's a lot more interaction for the customer. To help with this in the future, I decided to do a card sort exercise to see how they would group this information. The result was 2 groups of data - one for "personal info" (info about the company, personal info), and one for "loan info" (tax info, gathering various statements).
Upon finishing our workshop, the team was so much more enthusiastic. We shared the same knowledge, as well as made decisions together. The team went off and would later follow up with important updates on the potential blockers and issues. In the meantime, I started working on the initial solution, in the form of an interactive mockup.
Solution - the Interactive Mockup
Sometime after the workshop, I created the initial design proposal, after which I had 3 rounds of feedback with our stakeholders. We worked on all the details and made sure the solution was exactly what we wanted to test. Then, we proceeded to Usability Testing sessions with 5 enterprise customers.
The solution we tested starts with a simple loan calculator:
The solution we tested starts with a simple loan calculator:
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The flow is wizard-like. We keep the context of their loan at the top, always presenting the essential information about it, leaving no room for ambiguity:
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Signing the contract is done directly from the browser:
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And customers can view and manage their Loan requests at any time:
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🎮 Check out the prototype
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Meant to be viewed on larger screens. You can go fullscreen by clicking on the Expand icon in the top-right corner.
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Testing the Solution
Usability Testing was done with 5 corporate Customers, using Maze for gathering the quantitative data. Here are some screens from the Testing report:
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Some parts of the Customer Journey were more problematic, especially signing the contract. We got a lot of valuable feedback, that helped us further improve our Copy, UX and UI.
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If you like my work, feel free to reach out 👋
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