Introduction

Backstory: A loan officer’s primary goal is to convert their leads into funded loans. After my team solved the main problems with lead management, we needed to figure out how to help LO’s move those leads through the loan process. My team was tasked with validating a brand new workflow concept: potential borrowers begin as “Leads” in the CRM. After being vetted, a Lead is then converted into an “Opportunity.” The idea is that LO’s would complete the majority of their workflow within the Opportunity, with the end goal of turning it into a loan.

Method: Being limited on time and resources, our UX team facilitated Lean UX sessions. This strategy allowed us to obtain feedback as early as possible, which helped us make quick decisions and rapid iterations.

Team & Role: My role for this project was UX/UI Designer. My teammates were Joshua Han (UX), Kristen Falk (UX/UI), Jessica Chen (Product), and JaQuisha Harris (Business Analyst).

Session #1

Brainstorming

To start our Lean session, we spent 45 minutes gathering design inspiration during a lightning demo activity. After presenting our ideas to the rest of the team, we used heat mapping to identify our favorite features.

Sketching

Taking inspiration from the lightening demos, the team went straight into sketching solutions. After presenting our sketches, each team member got 3 regular votes (purple dots) and 1 supervote (red dot) to collectively decide what would make it into our prototype.

Winning Ideas

• Status progress tracker for both Lead and Opportunity stages

• Clear CTA’s to complete next step

• Success messages to motivate users to move files across the finish line

• In-line editing for transaction and property details

Prototyping

Our initial prototypes revolved around a progress tracker with prominent, direct CTA’s (orange buttons) to keep the file moving in the right direction. We made the assumption that this was the best way to display the file status and make next steps abundantly clear to users.

Usability Testing

We scheduled 6 usability tests. However, we only got through two tests before determining that we needed to stop and pivot directions. User feedback included:

“I would just click, click, click, and skip over most of it.”

“It [Opportunity] makes sense in theory, but like, I don’t really get why I have to do this.”

“It’s not that user-friendly, just seems like an extra step”

Results

Our solution failed for a number of reasons -

• The status progress tracker was too linear and forced users down a path where they had to take unnecessary extra steps

• Users did not see the value in having to convert a Lead into an Opportunity.

• Their workflow relies heavily on statuses which we did not have set in stone yet.

In response to the flaws found during usability tests, my team decided we needed to conduct more research to better understand and solidify the status workflow before scheduling a second round of Lean sessions and usability tests.

Brainstorming

Sketching

Winning Ideas

• Status Card containing a main status dropdown + associated sub-statuses

• Interactions Card to provide a quick overview of contact attempts and # of days since last follow up

• Banners with suggested next actions at key points in the workflow

• Checklist at the Opportunity stage with suggested, but not required actions items

Prototyping

This time around, our prototype included a status card that gave users freedom to move each file through the process at their own pace. We also built an interaction card to give LO’s a quick overview of the most recent contact attempts and inform them of how many days have passed since they last followed up.

In our first solution, users didn’t see the benefits of having Opportunities and questioned why they couldn’t just perform all their tasks within a Lead. To solve this, we included a high-level checklist at this stage to encourage — but not force — the user to focus on specific actions. We designed the checklist with collapsible sections and gave users freedom to check off tasks in any order.

During usability testing, we discovered that more seasoned LO's felt the checklist was distracting and took up too much screen space. During rapid iterations, we implemented a hide option which collapses the checklist and moves it to the very bottom of the page.

Usability Testing

This time around, LO’s were able to navigate the prototype and complete their tasks with ease. They also felt that the new statuses made sense for their workflow. User feedback included:

“Opportunity is not a word that we use currently - which is fine, it’s fine to have new terminology - it’s just something that we’ll have to get used to, like what does that mean?”

“I can see this [Opportunity checklist] being super helpful for people who are newer; people who are seniors and have done this for awhile are going to skip right over it.”

“Okay this is actually a good little checklist in here”

Results

After learning from the mistakes of our first Lean session, my team came back together and ideated better potential solutions for the users. We made rapid iterations after each test based on user feedback, resulting in a solution that met usability requirements and made sense in the context of the user workflow.

What’s Next

As I mentioned, the concept of Lead / Opportunity was completely brand new and based on unvalidated assumptions. Although my team created a usable solution that mostly made sense to users, we still had doubts that this was the best possible solution - we worried that we might be forcing the concept without exploring other possible avenues. Keeping an open mind, my team made plans to talk to loan officers to identify any knowledge gaps and ensure we landed on the best viable solution.