7 mins read • Monese
My Role
Product Designer – Interaction, UI design, prototyping, user testing
Team
Product Lead
Engineering team
Content Designer
User Researcher
Timeline
Oct 2022 – Feb 2023
Link
Overview
Credit Builder helps expats and freelancers in the UK who struggle to access financial services improve their credit scores. Monese tracks customers’ monthly savings in their credit saving account for 12 months and reports it to Credit Reference Agencies such as TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian to establish their credit history.
At the end of the 12-month term, customers receive their savings as a lump sum and may see improvements in their credit scores. A higher score increases their chances of being approved for credit cards, loans, or mortgages at better rates in the UK.
Following a soft launch over two quarters, the functionality has been validated, and a mass launch is planned to drive user acquisition. However, the team has identified issues in the onboarding process preventing users from signing up. These include unclear product offerings and hesitation about committing to a year-long savings plan.
This design initiative aimed to create a seamless onboarding experience that effectively communicates the benefits of Credit Builder, empowering customers to sign up with confidence. I led the end-to-end design process, optimising onboarding flows and collaborating closely with the product development team to refine the product roadmap. As a result, the initial feature achieved a 60% utilisation rate, and the full proposal played a key role in shaping the product roadmap.
Design highlight
Create an effective onboarding experience that clearly communicates the offers and empowers customers to confidently sign up for Credit Builder
Process
How did I streamline the onboarding experience based on the minimum viable product?
Capture the big picture
The team’s understanding of the product became fragmented due to multiple iterations
Credit Builder has undergone multiple iterations with different teams, resulting in fragmented product understanding and a lack of centralised documentation.
To address this, I collaborated with the team and stakeholders to capture the complete picture of the product and documented the screens and user journey in Figma, creating a single source of truth accessible to all team members.
Dive into customers
Financially underserved individuals strive to achieve a better financial future despite limited access to financial services
Credit Builder targets individuals aged 25 to 35 who have limited access to local financial services, including expats, foreign nationals, and freelancers. These individuals are often ambitious and striving for a better financial future.
However, many lack knowledge about their credit profiles and feel uncertain about how to improve them. As a result, it is crucial to empower them with a tool that helps them understand credit and build their credit scores.
Look into the data performance
A significant drop-off rate among users during key steps of the onboarding process
Based on observations from the funnels, there were several critical steps with significant user drop-offs during onboarding, indicating that customers were encountering blockers in the process. Therefore, it was essential to understand why this was happening and capture these missed opportunities.
Test the existing product
Leverage UserTesting.com to acquire user insights
To gain insights into the current pain points experienced by users, I led user testing on the existing Credit Builder product. In collaboration with a user researcher, we developed a research plan and interview scripts tailored to our target audience: ambitious expats living in the UK who are interested in establishing their credit profiles.
Identify user problems
Unclear onboarding and economic uncertainty hindered customer sign-ups for Credit Builder
To improve user growth, we focused on the onboarding stage and identified two key customer pain points through user testing. I created a customer journey map based on the testing findings to visualise problem areas and their severity, and collaborated with the team and stakeholders to brainstorm solutions.
Customers lacked clarity on the product’s offering and were skeptical about its ability to improve their credit scores.
From this page, I haven’t really learned much about Credit Builder with Monese Boost.
Customers hesitated to sign up for Credit Builder and discontinued the application due to uncertainty about their ability to save for the next 12 months in the unstable economic situation.
I’m not sure how much I could pay at the moment, cuz there’s a concern of bill and food prices rising.
Prioritise
Focus on problems that impact the Credit Builder sign-up process
To increase monthly revenue by 2.5%, the KPI of the Credit Tribe, we prioritised addressing problems that impacted Credit Builder sign-up rates, as customers are charged a monthly fee for using the service.
We first focused on addressing the issue of clarity, as it is essential for customers to understand what they are committing to before signing up. Next, we tackled issues of uncertainty to reassure customers.
Design solutions
Design an effective onboarding experience to help customers build their credit scores
Provide clear information about the offers and building customers’ confidence in using Credit Builder
Here are the key design highlights.
Enhance the clarity of the product offerings
Optimise the Credit Builder explanation during onboarding, focusing solely on its benefits and removing any mention of Monese Boost. Highlighting these key advantages helps customers understand the product’s value and boosts sign-up confidence.
Communicate flexibility in withdrawing savings to reassure customers
Highlight the flexibility of being able to withdraw savings at any time to reassure customers and keep them feeling in control.
Enable customers to resume where they left off in the onboarding process to reduce frustration
Add a ‘Remind me later’ option in the later stages of the onboarding process to encourage customers to complete their application at a more convenient time.
Validate
Constructive feedback from the design critique
I participated in weekly design critique sessions with the Monese design team where I regularly presented my designs for feedback
Through these critiques, I gained insights into potential usability issues and received feedback that helped me explore different design directions. Additionally, the critique sessions facilitated mutual understanding among team members, fostering opportunities for collaboration and minimising the risk of conflicts.
Implementation
Prioritise user experience while also contributing to the design system when needed
While taking care of both UI and UX design for Credit Builder, I placed a particular emphasis on enhancing the user experience. Thanks to our established design system, I had the opportunity to streamline the interaction process, ensuring it was as intuitive and user-friendly as possible.
By leveraging UI components from our existing library, I was able to create visually appealing UI screens. In cases where new design patterns or components were required, I took ownership of designing and creating these assets while contributing to the overall system.
Result
Provide a design proposal that can be put into action
We had proposed actionable design proposals to address the issues found in the onboarding process, and some of these proposals were successfully implemented. For instance, we introduced a “Remind me later” feature in the step where customers set up their monthly saving amount. The feature has been widely used, with an almost 60% utilisation rate, indicating its relevance to customers who might not have sufficient funds at the moment but are interested in signing up for Credit Builder later.
Our proposed design solutions were thoroughly reviewed with the team and stakeholders, and they were approved for implementation as they were technically feasible.
Learning
While the business took a moment to reassess product priorities, I gained valuable experience working on this project.
Create solutions that can scale when working with a complex product
Dealing with a complex product like Credit Builder requires the consideration of numerous corner cases and unhappy paths, such as missed payments, arrears, and default situations. To ensure relevance and avoid overly customised designs, it’s crucial to build scalable solutions that address these cases effectively.
Focus on users, the rest will follow
After receiving user feedback, we realised that offering Credit Builder with Monese Boost was confusing for customers and complicated the implementation process. To address this issue, I optimised the design to create an effective onboarding experience that would allow customers to confidently sign up for Credit Builder without confusion.