Frost Loan Tool
A tool to help customers find the right loan.
Company | Frost Bank
Time frame | 6 months, 2017-2018
Platform | Responsive Web, Mobile App
Existing and new customers need a quick, easy way to find the right loan for their financial needs. Frost bankers need a fast and reliable calculation to share with their customers in the branch or over the phone.
Customers have 3 questions while looking for loan:
Which loan is right for me?
Do I qualify for the loan? If so, how much?
Can I budget it for it?
The challenge
As the product designer, I conducted in-depth user research including interviews with bankers, customers, private bankers, and our internal lenders in order to gain valuable insights of our customer behaviors.
From the research and logic, I created the information architecture, user task flow, interaction, visual design, and prototypes. In much coordination with my product owner, we mapped out the seemingly complex if/then loan decision flows based on our customer’s inputs.
Illustration by Kevin Domingo
The team & my role
In order to verify what this product needed to accomplish, my product owner and I started out interviewing our customers and bankers to gain insight into the lending process and scrutinizing existing lending processes at Frost.
The research
First things first is to taking a look at the existing customer journey for retail lending at Frost.
This gave me a better idea of the bigger picture and pin-pointing any opportunities for better customer experiences.
Customer journey
Through reviewing our customers' journey, my product owner and I looked at what we could deliver to our customers and how it could evolve. We came to a tool that answers our customer's top 3 questions as an MVP.
We started mapping out the logic for the tool behind the scene. This logic map was extremely helpful in creating the user flows and scenarios.
The design process begin by looking at other financial tools and competitors to see how they help their customers solve similar problems. This competitive analysis allowed me to build a comprehensive moodboard.
Competitive analysis findings:
Financial tools are intuitive and short.
Tools that require personal information before the end of the flow saw more user drop offs.
Competitive analysis
& design inspiration
My preferred way of thinking is to grab an 11x17 paper, a felt-tip pen, and go to town on design solutions. When I sketch, I think about the big picture first to get a feel for where I'm going before I narrow down possible channels.
For the Frost Home Loan Tool, the solution revolved around a customer input strategy to create a curated experience. I explored calculators, quiz formats, and how to display the recommended loans all while thinking about the experience of our customers using this tool laying on the couch and the banker sitting in branch with our customers.
Sketches & wireframes
My product owner and I created a game plan for how and what we were going to test. We tested with bankers and actual customers who gave us valuable feedback:
Simple, easy to use
As a first time borrower, information is not fluent or comprehensive.
Want more loan details to fully understand what they're getting into.
User testing & results
Naturally, the design process is not a linear one. There is a lot of back and forth between design, testing, and receiving feedback.
At the design mockup phase of the project, I explored all possible channels for the tools which included:
Responsive web
Native app
Design mockups
Naturally, the design process is not a linear one. There is a lot of back and forth between design, testing, and receiving feedback.
At the design mockup phase of the project, I explored all possible channels for the tools which included:
Responsive web
Native app
Final Design
The first release of the Loan Tool has been released to bankers to use and test in branches across the state.
The Frost Loan Tool is significant because its Frost's first live product with the new design language system, Aurora.
Next steps include an online loan application and rethinking the content strategy of the loan landing pages on the Frost marketing website in order to optimize the tool's visibility and usage.
Results & Next Steps
Communication with all stakeholders and parties involved is key.
Likewise, teamwork is major key.
Special shout out to my product owner, Jacob. You Rock.