Case Study

Commercial Lending

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Case Study

Lloyds Banking Group

Commercial Lending

Service Design
Cognitive Walkthrough
Task Analysis
UI Design
Interaction Design
Business Process Re-engineering

Background

Part of the multi-year digital transformation programme for Lloyds Banking Group to overhaul the commercial on-boarding and lending user experience to support more varied and complex use-cases, create the back-end services to support it, and to reduce operating costs through digital transformation.

The Task

Design end-to-end user journey for SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) to on-board and apply for credit cards loans and other unsecured loans via a digital-only journey with minimal colleague interaction to save on operating costs from the overhead of running a call centre.

This end-to-end self-service journey will be accessed by user(s) from the current customer portal homepage and need to facilitate single or multi-product applications with complex company setups (multi-directors and/or multi legal signatories) and also need to track contract document signing.

The Process

Task Analysis

To understand the current process for companies to apply for lending products either in-branch or via a telephony journey.

Journey Mapping

Lo-Fi Wire-flows

Pen and paper low-fidelity wire-flows were drawn up and reiterated on before being shared with stakeholders. Once these were approved, it was time to turn these lo-fi design artefacts into hi-fidelity versions.

Hi-Fidelity Mockups

Static hi-fi mockups were built in Axure, to illustrate screen layout, information hierarchy, and content.

Whilst the project brief was initially to build a desktop browser experience, half-way through the project, there was a revised requirement to also design and build for a mobile experience. These mockups had to be adjusted to illustrate mobile screen sizes.

Interactive Prototype

The hi-fidelity mockups of each screen were linked-up within Axure and added interactive behaviours to create a fully interactive clickable prototype to be used for user-testing.

Animation is integral to the user experience and I wanted users to see the gradual loading of content through the fade-in animations and transitions between page or content states. This was 'baked' into the Axure prototype for user testing and as a reference for developers to implement.

User Testing

Recruited numerous business owners (an even mix of existing Lloyds customers and business owners banking elsewhere) for multiple user-testing sessions to be held within Lloyds Banking Group dedicated on-site usability lab, over a few months during the design process. Participant size limited to six people per session, mainly due to difficulty in recruiting willing participants. Participants were also selected to represent a wide demographic (age range, time in business, tech-savvy or tech-illiterate, business turnover, industry type).

User-Testing Results

Average user-satisfaction and "ease-of-use" score
(on a scale between 1 and 5) from user-testing of an initial proposed workflow solution:

4.9 out of 5

1 - Worst

Best - 5

Common Reactions from User-Testing Sessions

"This is so easy to use and understand."

"I wish my bank [ Barclays ] offered this!"

"Makes applying for a loan or credit card so straight-forward!"

"Love the contract multi-signing and tracking feature!"

What I would have done differently

Coming soon.

Conclusion

I am extremely proud of the work and results from this huge project. From the thorough analysis of the business objectives, problems with the current user journey(s), understanding the technical constraints of legacy back-end systems, I was able to design an end-to-end frictionless workflow for commercial customers which reduced their time-to-money from sixteen days down to one-to-two days, covering every edge-case, and also achieve an average user-satisfaction and ease-of-use score of 4.9 / 5 with the users who participated in user-testing, and all in the first design iteration. Successive design iterations were used for very minor visual design improvements.

Although it wasn't in the brief, I felt the end-to-end customer experience wouldn't be complete if I didn't tackle the issue of lack of information for the user when they view their lending product servicing page. I proposed an area where they can view and download all their signed documents pertaining to that lending product, other legal documents, and redesigned the payments history to show a progress bar against each payment to show how much closer the customer is to paying off the outstanding balance. This was extremey well received by all stakeholders and users during user-testing sessions.

The multi-signatory contract document-signing workflow and functionality within this end-to-end service was deemed so successful, I had also designed a user journey for the purchasing of commercial properties with multi-party signatories (e.g. conveyancers, surveyors, company directors) with in-document mark-up of requests for edits from these parties. This was also well-received by stakeholders but eventually "parked" for future development.

Testimonials

"Yooch is an all round solid designer, I can't recommend him highly enough. With all my honesty, he's a true gold mine of creative solutions and fresh ideas. He will go the extra mile and surprise you with something innovative and unique.

Apart from being an outstanding UX generalist, Yooch has solid front-end engineering skills too and is comfortable with taking his design ideas further by building proper, fully interactive prototypes. It was refreshing to meet another UXer who's fluent in JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

He's a rare find, a creative thinker with a remarkable combination of skills. Equally importantly, Yooch is an interesting person with a wide range of interests, he's just fun to be around! I genuinely believe Yooch would be a perfect addition to any creative team, I'd never hesitate to recommend him.

— January 2019

Balazs M. was a UX Consultant & Creative Technologist and worked with Yooch in the same groups at Lloyds Banking Group and London Stock Exchange Group / Refinitiv.

"I worked with Yooch for over 9 months on various projects. I validated his design concepts on some key projects within the bank.

They were well received by internal and external users. His designs are very well thought through and intuitive.

He is very professional, easy to work with and an expert in his field. I wish him the best of luck in all his future endeavours.

— March 2019

Rupal S. was a Senior User Researcher and worked with Yooch in the same group at Lloyds Banking Group

"Yooch is an exceptional designer capable of creating logical and intuitive interfaces for a wide variety of users. He has also shown a strong aptitude for designing in the financial services sector.

— February 2019

Alex K. was Content & Conversation Design Lead and worked with Yooch in the same groups at Lloyds Banking Group and London Stock Exchange Group / Refinitiv.

"I've had the pleasure of working with Yooch at both Lloyds Bank and Refinitiv. He's a very knowledgeable hard-working UX designer and someone who I value the opinion of.

His work is always well considered and to the highest quality. I would gladly recommend and work with Yooch on other projects.

— May 2020

Chris W. was Senior Visual Designer and worked with Yooch in the same groups at Lloyds Banking Group and London Stock Exchange Group / Refinitiv.

"Yooch, is a plate spinner extraordinaire, his ability to maintain a detailed engagement with a broad range of activities is what he is best at.

He’s also a detail guy, able to nail down tight specifications and communicate them succinctly back the business.

In the last few years I’ve worked with him on a number of jobs and have to say I’d recommend him, without any reservation.

— June 2020

Paul A. was Senior UX Designer & Prototyper and worked with Yooch in the same groups at Lloyds Banking Group and London Stock Exchange Group / Refinitiv.

View all testimonials

UX Manager Feedback

"If you need a professional and reliable UX designer with great and broad set of skills, great technical background, experience and ability to resolve the most complex design problems, look no further. Yooch is also genuine, honest and fun to work with. I hired him for two companies already and I'll do it without the shadow of hesitation if the chance comes again."

— Jiri S. Human-Centred Design Lead - Commercial Lending Value Stream.

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