Coviance (Borrower Portal)

The CEO asked me to audit and redesign our Borrower Portal to align the designs with our business objectives and drive revenue growth


Results and Impact:

  • Generated $1 Million in revenue the first year - received from 5 B2B customers

  • Increased retention by 20% - Streamlined interface, enhanced security, and better document management

What is a Borrower Portal?

Borrower Portal is a cloud-based application designed to streamline the document exchange process between loan officers and borrowers. With Borrower Portal, this process is secure and efficient, reducing the document turnaround time.

Roles

I took on the following roles for this project:

  • Founding Product Designer

  • UX Researcher

Deliverables

  • High-fidelity prototypes for cross-functional partners

  • Competitive Analysis

  • User surveys and user interviews

  • User journeys and task flow

  • Low-fidelity prototypes

  • Usability testings and findings

Duration

8 Months:

  • 2 months of user interviews

  • 6 months of building the product from the ground up, including beta testing and iterations

The reason we started building

Traditionally, borrowers had to email documents or visit a branch in person, often resulting in a 60-day turnaround. To streamline this process, my team and I developed an online solution that leverages modern technology. Our goal was to make document submission and communication more efficient and accessible, significantly reducing the turnaround time.

Getting Started

  1. Understood the Current Experience: I started by thoroughly analyzing the borrower's journey from both the loan officer's and the borrower's perspectives.

  2. Identified Existing Problems: I uncovered various issues faced by both loan officers and borrowers.

  3. Defined Target Users: I identified and gained a deep understanding of our target user base.

  4. Designed the User Flow: I created a user flow that mirrored the current process of buying or renting a property, ensuring familiarity and ease of use.

  5. Developed an MVP List: My product manager and I discussed and crafted a list of minimum viable product (MVP) features to focus on the most critical aspects first.

Design Audit & Usability Test

I meticulously reviewed each aspect of the interface, putting myself in the users' shoes to understand their journey. It was clear that while some elements were working well, there were significant areas that needed improvement.

To validate my assumptions, I conducted a focused usability test. Here’s what I discovered:

Design Issues

  • Color combination fails the accessibility guidelines (WCAG 2.1)

  • New tasks fail to grab the attention

  • Task status is too far from the title of the task

  • No notification for new messages

Existing Designs

Usability Findings

  • Users struggled with certain tasks because the navigation wasn’t intuitive.

  • The overall flow felt disjointed.

  • Forms were cumbersome causing unnecessary frustration.

  • Visual design lacked consistency, which impacted the user experience negatively.

Solutions

  • Design with accessibility guidelines in mind to ensure compliance.

  • Perform a heuristic evaluation to identify possible usability issues.

  • Center elements to facilitate easier eye movement patterns.

  • Establish a clear color hierarchy for tasks.

  • Develop a user-friendly interface for loan officers to view messages, approve, and reject documents, integrating notifications for pending tasks to ensure secure and efficient processing.

New Loan Officer Dashboard

  • Easily view and download documents.

  • Approve correct documents and reject incorrect ones.

  • Leave notes on rejected documents for corrections.

  • Undo approvals if needed, with final approvals restricted to managers and admins.

Loan Officer Changes

Initially, loan officers faced challenges when multiple documents were grouped under the same task, making it difficult to identify and explain which specific document was incorrect.

New Borrower Dashboard

  • New tasks are highlighted with a brighter color aligned with our design system to grab users' attention.

  • The “New” label is added to the tab to indicate a new task is waiting to be viewed.

  • Visual noise for borrowers is reduced to help them focus on items requiring their attention.

  • Once documents are uploaded, the status bar changes to gray, signaling that no further action is needed and reducing overstimulation.

  • Tasks that need attention are automatically brought to the top, ensuring users see and address them first, while completed tasks remain lower in the list since no action is required.

Cherry on top!

We added ID authentication to our product to ensure robust security, compliance, and trust. This feature protects against unauthorized access, fraud, and breaches of personal privacy, maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive information.

What I learned

Conduct usability testing as frequently as possible.

  1. Identify and prioritize the most crucial feature and design changes.

  2. Collaborate constantly with the team to keep everyone updated.

  3. Proactively anticipate and address user problems.

  4. Remember that while user feedback is valuable, it should be considered critically as a designer.

Since the release

As the company's first product designer, I spearheaded the ideation and launch of the Borrower Portal, generating $1M in revenue within a year from five B2B customers. I prioritized and designed new features to align with business objectives and user needs, boosting user retention by 20%. My approach included mixed-method research, utilizing think-aloud sessions, questionnaires, interviews, data visualization, and affinity diagrams. I created sketches, user flows, wireframes, and clickable prototypes to effectively communicate interactions to engineers. Additionally, I ensured design consistency across business lines by educating cross-functional teams on best practices.