A Premium Experience: Quote Customization

Empowering loan Officers with customized quotes, paving the path to home ownership for more.

Increasing Quote Retrievals to Widen the Path to Homeownership

17% increase

in the volume of SplitEdge Quotes retrieved within the first 4 months of the feature release.

Project Objectives

Review MI Rate Finder quote retrieving flow and identify pain points and usability improvement opportunity areas. 

Identify MVP features, design choices, and interactions that meet users’ needs.

Support the business goals to increase quotes retrieved and New Insurance Written (NIW) by empowering lenders with flexible MI premium payment options.

Aligning User and Business Needs

Uncovering the Challenge

Field
Research

Survey

The Sales Team surveyed customers on their priorities and product preferences when selecting an MI provider. The feedback made it clear: competitive rates were most important.

Competitive

Research

We conducted competitive research to gain a deeper understanding of our industry peers' offerings. This knowledge was essential in crafting a distinct and effective approach to differentiate ourselves from competitors.

Task Analysis

I conducted a task analysis, breaking down the steps, actions, and cognitive processes required for retrieving a quote. This internal examination was crucial for understanding the user experience, the product, and optimizing the quote retrieval process.

In collaboration with the Customer Care Experience Analyst, using Qualtrics, I conducted a survey to gain insights into customers' usage patterns and challenges when using the Rate Finder tool.

Tying Insights Together

What Are We Solving For?

Loan Officers need access to customizable Mortgage Insurance Quotes to accommodate their client's budgets, thereby facilitating the journey to homeownership for more people.

Design Goals

As the sole Designer, my challenge was to create an experience that allows the user to customize their quote rates based on the pricing scheme that the business created.

I was to effectively transform the Stakeholder’s vision to expand rates into a user-friendly tool for tailoring quotes to individual needs.

Identify how to implement the new customizable quoting feature.

Improve clarity of information presentation and actionable items.

Enhance new and existing user product comprehension.

Constraints

  • Existing flow cannot be altered.

  • Product cards cannot be overhauled or changed generally, and they cannot be redesigned for responsiveness to improve the experience across various devices.

  • Usability testing challenges until halfway through the project. Hesitancy to adopt new tools.

  • Short timeframe. No time to catch up with industry or integrate myself to the team.

Brainstorming Potential Solutions

Stakeholders had a vision (and strong opinions); they told me to design a slider. They believed this was The Solution because it seemed modern and our competitors used sliders.

I was to balance stakeholder expectations and demands, while being an advocate for UX best practices and user-centered design. I designed what stakeholders wanted to see, and also created suitable alternatives.

Hypothesis

We believe that leveraging a modal allowing Loan Officers to easily customize MI Quotes will help them serve their customers faster while increasing quote retrieval volume and New Insurance Written for the business.

Validating Assumptions

Truths Uncovered

Iterate and Improve

  1. Reorganized various CTA’s under a unified “Actions” area and added visual cues (icons).

  2. Added tooltips with information about the product and acronyms.

  3. Updated copy to reduce redundancies and confusion.

  4. Addressed accessibility issues (the teal color did not have enough contrast against the background), also increase font size where needed.

Lessons Learned

Processes & Design

  • Provide context with usability tests: when using folks from usertesting.com provide more context about the type of company and product.

  • A UX Design walkthrough, specs, and regular quality control reviews are necessary

    • dev did not make the table as designed (the hover and select functionality).

  • Understanding how the system is built and what its limitations are is important to guide design decisions.

Aptitude & Competence

  • Adaptability is key, particularly when working in ambiguity and with no straightforward timeline.

  • Communication is crucial to efficiency and error mitigation.