Background
Vantage brought in our Stratmor product development team to help produce a mobile on the go application that loan officers could use outside of their office space. The key features needed Vantage’s clients to stay engaged with the mobile app and help assist professionals stay in touch with their contacts list and borrowers loan processing information. Creating a product to help rival their competitors was the targeted goal and the mobile application needed to be something unique and valuable for customers.
The Problem
Vantage Production’s platform hosts several important features that loan officers utilize on a day to day basis. Trying to get all of these tools into a mobile application would be quite a challenge. The Vantage team knew about this problem and had asked our product team what solution would be necessary to provide the best experience for loan officers on the go outside of the office. What features would be key to list out in the product and how do we avoid creating a bloated mobile app?
The Design Challenge
After brainstorming with both the Vantage marketing team and business c-level executives we discovered a few important road blocks:
- Developing a PWA or web based app could create some data sync’ing issues and may not be the best solution moving forward.
- Navigation and forms had to be designed simple and optimized for loan officers on the go. We needed to list only the essential features and primary data points that loan officers would need to see outside of the office.
- Privacy concerns - how extensive can the loan information be displayed on a mobile solution?
- Would there be a need to utilize the camera from a phone for scanning documents or to utilize for private meeting connections between loan officers and borrowers? How would the product scale for future features or needs?
Product Goals
After brainstorming with the Vantage stake holders covering challenges, application needs, and expectations from both the business and marketing departments, our design process and product requirements were documented. We defined a design process needed to capture research information from the Vantage loan officers, produce a dynamic prototype for user testing needs, and learn from our targeted customers what features truly are needed for a mobile product. Taking the “Mobile 1st” approach to the development of the app was our top priority. The product needed to be lean, operate fast for variable connection speeds, and provide desirable tools for loan officers to use everyday.
My Responsibilities
Throughout the project timeline, my role as a designer was tasked with the following responsibilities:
- Interview the company stake holders to gather key information about the marketing and business needs for the mobile application.
- Plan and host one-on-one loan officer interviews for collecting research information.
- Survey external Vantage users to collect research feedback covering the Vantage platform.
- Research the competition and analyze their mobile product offerings.
- Sketch, wireframe and prototype a dynamic mobile app that could be used for user testing needs.
- Setup and perform user tests covering the mobile prototype in-house and report back discoveries from the testing.
Research
Our product team needed some more in-depth understanding of Vantage’s features across the platform. What we wanted to research is what challenges do loan officers currently have with the product and how can we avoid bringing these challenges into a mobile application. After brainstorming and deciding what design research methods we should perform a short list was formed.
- Perform a Heuristic review across the Vantage platform. What challenges could we find navigating and performing task flows in the system?
- Interview four loan officers who use the platform frequently and are available for a one-on-one GoToMeeting call.
- Research SimpleNexus and Blend Mortgage - both were the only competitors with a mobile solution at the time.
- Analyze loan officer interviews and design Personas that cover the needs for a mobile product.
- Map out the Vantage platform’s information architecture. What paths or tasks can we simplify or reduce down to complete workflows?
Post Research Results
After performing interviews with our participants we discovered a few key findings:
- 3 out of 5 loan officers interviewed directly don’t like using the platform due to difficulty navigating around the application.
- Out of 20 surveyed loan officers from out short list, 60% of surveyed participants (or 12 people) had navigation challenges as well.
- While interviewing the loan officers we discovered two important features for a mobile solution on the go. The first would be an intelligent notification system that would help organize loan officers outside of the office with pipeline milestones. The second would be a calendar tool that is sync’ed with Outlook accounts. Rather than switch back and forth between Outlook calendar tasks the Vantage app could incorporate these tasks into the mobile app.
- Surveyed loan officers primary needed a way to view loan borrowers on file, the ability to add leads to their contact list, and see loan pipeline activity in realtime.
Designing the Mobile App
After collecting and analyzing our research information, we formed a short list of key features that crafted our mobile solution. The primary navigation list and features are:
- Home landing section that provides system data charts, activity list of actions or updated activities happening in real-time from the system, notifications list, search input and an account settings section.
- Leads section - contact details for possible new leads to establish business with. The lead contact information, time of new leads coming into the system, and short list of controls make up this feature.
- Loans section - Timeline status of loan pipeline activities listing borrowers and milestone updates in real-time.
- Calendar tool - sync’ed tasks and schedules that work in parallel to the loan officers Outlook account.
- Presentation generator - Customized forms that allows loan officers to generate a PDF presentation. This presentation covers loan rates, qualified borrower details and contact information for the loan officer.
Producing the prototype
With our requirements locked down I went through several design interactions sketching UI concepts and mapping the task flows for the mobile product. Next, the wireframe layouts were illustrated and approved by the Vantage stake holders. Following the wireframe designs I began styling a brand guide covering colors, typography and icons. Once the brand guide was completed I finished our UI designs by crafting the high level mockups to be used for our prototype. The Vantage team loved the look and layout of the mobile app concept. For user testing purposed I utilized InVision to create the dynamic-touchable prototype.
User Testing Results
After completing the InVision prototype I scheduled to meet with the five loan officers on our short list. All were available to connect on a GoToMeeting call and each participate had an embedded camera on their laptops. The tasks list was simple, followed with a few questions to rank how much they enjoy using the prototype. Each user tester enjoyed going through the prototype and gave some valuable feedback. Most important discovery was the lack of need for the SMART presentation feature. Most participates didn't need this feature for a mobile solution and would rather setup a generated PDF presentation from their office desktop or laptop. After briefing the Vantage stake holders about this discovery the team decided to keep the feature and review the usage analytics over time. Overall the prototype was a success and our team accomplished producing an MVP for the Vantage developers to utilize for development. The mobile applications was launched into production and currently is available for Vantage's loan officers to use with their accounts.
Reflection
Our mobile product was a success and launched out to the marketplace. Researching directly with the loan officers saved us valuable time and costs before handing over a prototype to development. Our Stratmor product group learned what type of features loan officers really need for quick on the go usage from their phones. This acquired knowledge helped our product team understand loan officers a bit more and we utilized that experience for future mortgage application design.
