A companion application for Vancity members to manage their credit and set goals that encourage credit building, to better support their financial well-being.
The following work is a personal redesign of a previous academic project. Originally, this was a student project with 5 designers (Elena Hsu, Kristina Kim, Elizabeth Lo, Macguire Rintoul, Isabelle Soares).
The original project received an Honourable Mention for the 2019 RGD Student National Awards of Excellence for Strategic Design and showcased at the 2019 SFU FCAT Undergraduate Conference. The team was also invited to share the project with Vancity’s Digital Strategy team after the course concluded.
After the course concluded, I redesigned aspects of this project based on feedback after the course. This was an exercise to reflect on my own design process, and implement areas of improvement.
Disclaimer: The following work is a hypothetical solution, and is not affiliated with Vancity Credit Union.
Domain Problem
Financial credit is an important aspect of Canadian’s financial history, and an estimated 56% of Canadian’s have never checked their credit score (Bank of Montreal and Pollara).
As one of Canada’s largest non-profit credit unions – Vancity can help deliverer digital offerings that can benefit their members and communities. And since almost half of their members interact almost entirely digitally, this would be an added value to their digital functionality.
But credit is misunderstood...
One big challenge is that there are misconceptions when it comes to credit building, along with the fact that Vancity provides little information about credit building. With this solution, we could address these gaps and issues to bring member scores to the forefront earlier.
Therefore, Vancity has an opportunity to address:
Information Hierarchy
Despite the importance of credit, relevant information lies deep in the navigation of Vancity’s website.
Lack of Resources
Vancity’s existing mobile app has yet to provide resources for credit management.
Fear of Checking
We found that people were actually afraid to check their score, especially those with lower credit scores. Along with this, we found that 1 in 5 people think checking their score will actually lower it, which is a false assumption.
Low Urgency, Low Importance
Many people don't realize how credit affects them until it's too late. Generally, this could happen when they go to check their score, and if a score is low, it cannot be fixed overnight.
Rather than just telling people about credit, we felt strongly as a team that a meaningful intervention had to be more than information. It is more meaningful to ask what to do with this information?
How might we provide guidance that reduces financial anxieties by encouraging members and providing tools to reach their goals?
Process
Understanding Vancity Members
In order to understand our members, we conducted research during our sprint to determine segments that members with credit could be.
We settled on a customer segment who would need help building credit:
Disappointed Applicant
Members who have applied for loans but were not approved, or were not able to get the interest rate they wanted due to their credit score.
Guiding the Journey
We created this persona based off our member segment: a full-time veterinary technician who didn’t qualify for an interest rate they were happy with. This persona needs guidance, and this is where Vancity could intervene most meaningfully.
By creating a journey framework, it allowed us to understand what the current process is today without our intervention. This helped us to fully illustrate the process and identify current frictions within the process of researching credit.
Research
As a lead on testing for the team, I designed the user test plan for the team. For testing, I conducted in-person user testing with a think-aloud method. This allowed for the most pivotal feedback.
Through 3 weeks, we user tested with 9 participants. Our methodology involved:
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conducing A/B think-aloud user testing to look at the clarity of the app
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comparing two visual concepts to determine the final result
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testing common workflow scenarios via a Flinto click-through prototype
By testing, we identified that we needed to explain credit better, specifically making on-boarding more relevant to avoid confusion. We also validated from A/B testing which version was easier to process.
Design Principles
In order to have a clear direction for the voice and tone of the application, we established design principles that guided our interface.
Be Personal
As a local credit union, Vancity is recognized for their personal service which should be consistent across all channels.Be Clear
Use common language to guide members through understanding each step of their credit process.Be Hopeful
Provide information upfront and always frame things positively when assisting members in improving their credit score.
Scenario overview:
Design Evolution
One challenge was the use of red. Red is Vancity's brand colour, but also has a negative connotation in finance. Through the redesign, I wanted to look at muting the red colour an adding in other accompanying colours, while still respecting the brand.
Other aspects of the redesign also looked at bringing in more clarity to charts used in the app.
Final UI:
Home
Quick and glanceable information about their credit score is intended. Members can see their overall score, credit at a glance, goals, and insights about what is affecting their credit score. The use of flags for insights and colour connotations identify the positive and negative factors.
Home will showcase your credit score on a graph, and show your score over time. Data cards showcase why your score may be lower, with a "threshold flag" to indicate negative and positive results.
Onboarding
Our onboarding explains credit, and links accounts from other financial institutions, to give a cohesive look at how factors and other accounts affect their score.
Goals
Curated information helps members reach their goal by giving them clear, achievable steps within a reasonable timeframe.
Learn
Based on the FICO Equifax factors, these are the 5 guidelines that influence your credit score. Clicking on a factor reveals more insights about that specific point. We can point to actions here, such as enabling Pre-Authorized Payments, which can help members.
Notifications
Everyone manages their finances differently. With curated notifications, MyCredit recommends actions specific to each member’s habits rather than providing generic information.
Celebration
We celebrate accomplishments and recognizing members for their efforts encourages them along their credit building journey.
Full App Architecture
This is our imagined sitemap that would be needed for initial implementation and launch if Vancity was to make this available to members, to achieve the optimal experience for Vancity members.
Measurability & Defining Success
Our team was invited to present the full solution to Vancity's digital strategy team after the course concluded, with positive feedback from the team.
Financial literacy is an important component of all of our products and services at Vancity. The app demonstrated the unique financial needs of our members and community, with excellent design and a modern take on Vancity branding, this project inspired our Digital team to push for new user experiences. It is clear that the product was well researched and would produce the results that the team wanted.
- Aaron Walker, Manager, User Experience at Vancity
The key takeaway:
By giving members the tools and knowledge to build up their credit, we can empower members to change their score.
Reflection
This project allowed me to gain more experience in prototyping, and help to bring interfaces to life with more complex motion. Being able to adapt quickly to interface changes allowed me to develop my thinking process and workflow for collaboration between UI and prototyping.
This project has helped me professionally as well, as this was a large-scale project in a short time frame. It allowed me think more rapidly, and develop more clear design decisions.