Improving the Online Application Journey

Design Thinking/UX/UI

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The Request

Evaluate and improve the online product application journey and post-application onboarding experience. Users were missing their next step instructions in the previous iteration.

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Discoveries

• Disjointed end-to-end user journey.

• Users would begin application process from one of 50+ branded product pages (similar product, but targeted to niche audiences) 

• Each user would land at the same application page, hosted by a third party, regardless of entry point. Lacked visual brand consistency from hosted content to third-party content.

• User would still need to choose which branded product for which he/she was applying from a dropdown menu.

• After submission, the application status would return one of 3 individually-designed pages: one for accepted applications, one for denied applications, and a third for applications that would require further evaluation. All 3 pages were had similar layouts, but were visually different than the previous two page formats the user experienced, and would need to be created for every branded product. That's a minimum of 150 pages, which would need to be created and maintained.

• Response pages had unclear directions for next steps. A horrible end to the user journey. "Where am I? What's next?"

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Needed Improvements

• Being targeted to exclusive branding opportunities means the user has no interest in the other branded products. Users shouldn’t be forced to sift through 50+ projects to locate their preferred product.

• Create a single response page, which can populate content based on the results of the application evaluation, and contain next steps.

• Find a way to take the user back to where he/she began their application process, so they can continue exploring the branded product offerings instead of leading them further away from their starting point.

• Reduct the number of pages that need to be created and maintained internally.

• Needs to have improved responsive layout.

• Improve odds of user reading through onboarding next steps.

 

Solutions

• Preselect the branded product on the application page by recognizing the path the user has taken and dynamically passing a variable to the form to prefill/preselect any branded product-related fields.

• Make sure the third-party application page is more closely aligned visually to provide an added sense of comfort to applying customers 

• Take the user back to their starting branded product page, and use a modal overlay to inform the user of his/her application status and next steps. This content can load dynamically into the modal, meaning internal partners don’t need to create 150+ pages, just universal content with dynamic text replacement for any brand-specific product information. When the user closes the modal response, the user is back on the page where he or she began the process so they can continue reading more about the product as a now-invested customer.

• User must, at a minimum, click through the onboarding steps, to help increase the odds of getting ahead of customer questions that had been overlooked in previous design.

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View Low-Fidelity Recreation in Sketch Cloud Prototype