BRIEF

App users need quick, easy access to their credit score factors.

ROLE

Lead UX/UI Designer on a team of 4 (one PM and two mobile developers) for our iOS and Android App.

APPROACH

It was important for us to understand how credit factors was being implemented on web and why it is successful.  Based on our initial research we narrowed the scope to include 1) useful information about the user and 2) offer recommendation for the business.

Users want to know see what's change on their credit and suggestions for next steps WITHOUT feeling like they're being pushed ads.

SKETCHING AND PROTOTYPING

Based on our initial research, I sketched a few ideas that included business and user needs. After reviewing engineering constraints, our team narrowed down our list of options down to two: one focused more on interaction while the other revealed all the information at once.

Needs:

• BUSINESS: Improved app experience and revenue

• USERS: Personalized credit advice and less "ads"

Highlights of previous research:

• Majority of our user base are average mobile users

• Mobile users tend to check their phones more often for credit score updates and alerts

• Users respond to seeing the connection between personal data and offers vs. text and offers only

• Users are frustrated seeing "poor grades" for factors they have little control over (i.e. Account Mix and Credit Age)

TESTING

THE MAIN FEATURE

We tested the "interactive" vs. "reveal all"/cards approach for the main feature, tested the layout for the following "action" step, de-risked our assumptions, and tested usability of the winner in preceding tests.

What worked:

• Users understand the grades were an indicator of their current status

• It is necessary to provide more context for the monetizing offers suggested

• Users were more comfortable with a reveal all approach vs. interactive, accordion style due to less click actions

What didn't work:

• Hiding information under tabs were less appealing to the user

Based on these learnings, we decided to move forward with the "reveal all"/cards approach, retain the grades, and keep the action steps relatively easy for the users to grasp.

THE ADVICE/OFFER LAYOUTS

For the subsequent "action" pages user will land on after clicking an action, the company wanted to include a card or personal loan offer that best fit their need. We tested one offer vs. multi-offer layouts.

What worked:

• Adding an educational piece of why that offer can help the user with their credit. The context and user understanding was the key selling point.

What didn't work:

• Placing multiple offers on the subsequent action page confused and overwhelmed our users. They wanted to know what to do next without having to select from a list of options.

We moved forward with reiterating the credit score grade, including a credit education piece, and adding only one existing credit card and personal loan offer layout to this