How I Created a One Stop Shop for Borrowers

A Reimagining of Visio Lending's Borrower Portal

Pictured: the newly updated loan details page for borrowers

Let's Face It: Getting a Loan is Hard.

You have to

Find a Company You Like

Go Through the Process

Hope You Get Approved

It's extremely stressful, especially for a purchase as big as a house. That's why making the process as easy as possible is critical.

Unfortunately, Visio Lending's process was opaque and complex.

Customers had an extremely simplistic portal that didn't have an easy way to view information about their loan or to communicate with their Account Executive (AE). Instead, they primarily communicated via email, which led to a lot of unnecessary back and forth and major frustration.

I solved that by creating a comprehensive user portal.

Here's how I did it.

01 Evaluate Current Portal

02 Interview Borrowers & AEs

03 Create Site Structure

04 Design, Design, Design

The initial site consisted of two main pages: the home page and a loan details page (pictured below).

Upon initial examination, the site's organization didn't make conceptual sense.

Additional features and functionality were nested under 'Loan Details' even when they had nothing to do with a specific loan.

Furthermore, borrowers were confused about the status of their loan and wanted feedback about their documents. When interviewed, they said things like

I have no idea if I need to update the documents I submitted.

It's hard to know what to do next...I usually wait for an email from [my AE].

I send emails to my AEs trying to understand where my loan is [in the process].

When I interviewed AEs, I found several dovetailing and novel insights, such as

Borrowers emailed AEs wanting to know where their loan was in the process.

Borrowers emailed them their documentation directly, making AEs have to attach them to the borrower profile. This took significant time for AEs to do.

Borrowers called AEs to go through their loan program options

AEs wanted a simpler way to gather initial information from borrowers.

Ultimately, I boiled down my findings to four main recommendations.

1 / Provide additional details about borrowers' loan statuses.

2 / Give borrowers a way to see what tasks they need to do next.

3 / Allow users to upload their documents and see documents' status as they go through processing.

4 / Add in a way for borrowers to easily view potential loan programs and make a selection without having to call AEs.

Now that I understood user's pain points more, I created a new site map.

Highlights

All functionality under "Loan Details" is specific to that loan. They can upload documents, complete forms, view their loan's status, and select the loan program they want to continue with.

Users are also able to easily provide proof of funds for all loans using an entirely new connection to a third-party service, Plaid. This got rid of sensitive information being communicated over e-mail.

I also implemented a more robust 'Help' section to assist in answering questions to help users and to cut down on email communication.

I created new process flows to document how users would progress through the new LOS.

An example of some of the process flows.

After gathering requirements and sketching initial designs, I created new designs for each feature.

My Deals

This is the main jumping off point for borrowers. They are able to get a bird's eye view of all their loans with Visio to get an idea of the loan statuses.

Loan Details Page

This is the main area for a loan. From here, users will be able to accomplish everything they need to do for a loan, from selecting their loan program and completing an application to uploading all requested documents.

Create New Deal Page

After comprehensive consultation with stakeholders, I was able to pare down the 'create new deal' flow to one page and nine total fields (cut down from a three step form and 12 fields). They are able to do progress through it as simply as possible with no required fields so there's a low barrier to entry.

Create New Deal Credentialed Default (1).png

Now and next up: usability testing.

I am in the middle of conducting usability testing with both borrowers and AEs on the new LOS. I will be testing at minimum 5 total to get an idea of the biggest flaws and then will be iterating and testing again in a recurrent cadence. Ideally, this would have taken place during the design period but I was limited due to time constraints.

Psst! Interested in seeing what full qual and quant usability testing looks like? Check out my H-E-B project.

An example of documentation from a usability test with an AE.