Oct 2022 – Feb 2023 | Interaction, UI design, Prototyping, Testing | Monese
Overview
Design an effective onboarding experience to help customers build their credit scores
Credit Builder helps expats and freelancers in the UK who struggle to access financial services to build their credit scores. Monese tracks customers’ monthly savings to their credit saving account for 12 months and reports it to the Credit Reference Agencies, such as TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian, to establish their credit history.
By the end of the 12-month term, customers can receive their savings in a lump sum and see improvements in their credit scores. With a good score, customers can be approved for credit cards, loans, or mortgages at better rates in the UK.
After a soft launch for two quarters, the functionality has been proven, and a mass launch has been planned to target user acquisition. However, the team has found that there are a few issues in the onboarding stage that are preventing users from signing up for the service. These include unclear product offerings and uncertainty about committing to savings for a year.
The goal of this series of designs was to create an effective onboarding experience to help customers understand the offers and confidently sign up for Credit Builder. I led and executed the design to streamline the onboarding experience and worked with the product development team to inform the product roadmap and implement the necessary features.
My role
- Design the end-to-end customer experience for Credit Builder
- Create prototypes and conduct evaluative research to identify user problems
- Analyse research findings and apply insights to design solutions
- Envision the future direction to influence product strategy
- Facilitate communication with stakeholders to align directions
- Define interaction flows and create visual assets for implementation
- Measure design outcomes through data analysis and user feedback
*The team consisted of 1 product designer (me), 1 product lead, 1 product analyst, 4 developers (1 iOS, 1 Android, 2 backend), 1 QA engineer.
How did I streamline the onboarding experience based on the minimum viable product?
Capture the big picture
The product understanding within the team 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 that could be accessed and referred to by all team members.
Dive into customers
Financially underserved individuals strive to gain a better financial future despite limited access to financial service
Credit Builder targets individuals aged 25 to 35 who have limited access to local financial services, such as expats, foreign nationals, and freelancers. These individuals are often ambitious and striving for a better financial future.
However, many of them have limited knowledge about their credit profiles and feel uncertain about how to improve them. As a result, it is essential to empower them with a tool that can help them learn about credit and build up their credit scores.
Look into the data performance
A significant drop-off rate among users during key steps in the onboarding process
From what is being observed in the funnels, there were a few critical steps with significant user drop-offs in the onboarding, which indicated customers must encounter blockers during the process. Hence, it was essential to understand why and capture these missed opportunities.
Test the existing product
Leverage UserTesting.com to acquire user insights
To gain insights into current pain points experienced by users, I led user testing on the existing Credit Builder product.
Collaborating with a user researcher, we developed a research plan and interview scripts tailored to our target audience of ambitious expats living in the UK who are interested in establishing their credit profile.
Using UserTesting.com, we launched an unmoderated task that included 12 participants.
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 customer pain points through user testing.
We then created a customer journey map based on the testing findings to visualise problem areas and severity, and collaborated with the team and stakeholders to brainstorm solutions.
Clarity
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.
The Monese Boost and stuff like that is the part which doesn’t seem to (be) clear with me.
I have other savings that are accessible, if I want to pay something. I probably would never use Monese Boost.
Credit Builder, a savings product, was bundled with Monese Boost, a security loan plan that customers could access after making the 4th Credit Builder saving. However, customers found it difficult to understand the bundled offer and its relevance to them, which led to confusion and skepticism about the product’s benefits.
Uncertainty
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
To increase monthly revenue by 2.5%, the KPI of the Credit tribe, we prioritised addressing problems that impacted Credit Builder sign-up rates since customers are charged a monthly fee for using the service.
We focused first on addressing the issue of clarity since it is essential for customers to understand what they are committing to before signing up. We then tackled issues of uncertainty to reassure customers.
Apply insights to design solutions
Make the onboarding informative and reassuring
After discussing and learning from the insights, I integrated them into the design concept and aligned with stakeholders on the direction.
Our goal was to create an onboarding experience that would allow customers to sign up for Credit Builder with a clear understanding and no doubts.
Design solutions
The design solutions aimed to enhance the onboarding experience by providing clear information about the offers and building customers’ confidence in using Credit Builder.
Here are the key design highlights.
Enhance the clarity of product offerings
Optimise the explanation of Credit Builder and focus solely on its benefits during the app onboarding process, remove any mention of Monese Boost. By emphasising these key advantages, customers are more likely to understand the value of the product and feel confident in signing up.
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 from both designers and UX professionals, regardless of the scope of the project.
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 is taking a moment to reassess the product priority, I’ve 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.