Laurel road

As an innovator in the exciting world of Fintech, Laurel Road is focused on creating seamless, personalized experiences for its customers. From student loan refinancing to mortgages to personal loans, we offer online financing solutions with honest, competitive rates and clear terms that help simplify financial decision-making. We strive to be a trusted financial partner by supporting our customers at every financial milestone, with the technology and simplicity they expect from a digital innovator, and the transparency and security they deserve from a bank.

Student loan assessment tool

I was brought on to the Laurel Road team to build on the success of their Student Loan Refinancing product. While users were able to successfully apply and submit documentation seamlessly, there was a lack of educational materials and tools for prospective customers (PCs) unsure if refinancing was right for them. To address those underserved prospective users the Student Loan Assessment Tool (SLAT) was quickly created and released by engineers for PCs to easily calculate and compare multiple repayment options and funnel PCs into refinancing with Laurel Road. The SLAT, however, wasn't designed with the end-user in mind and consequently, PCs were not using the tool.

I was tasked with redesigning the tool after completing the first round of SLAT user testing was completed. While the team already had a testing plan in place, I noticed they planned to test static wireframes. I took the initiative to quickly create clickable, interactive prototypes in Adobe XD to help close the gap between the SLAT's intentions and the user’s expectations. I also worked with the team to uncover what emotional state PCs are experiencing when exploring refinancing options, the context around when and where PCs are most likely to interact with the tool, the interaction triggers, how much time PCs are expected to interact with the tool.

projects

Partnerships Portal
Student Assessment Tool (SLAT)
Mortgage (MLOS) App
Credit Score Health Web App
Direct Mail
Banner Campaigns

tools

Adobe Creative Suite
Invision
JIRA
Fullstory
Paper
Pen

Mortgage App

Traditionally, the process of applying for a mortgage presented a series of customer pain points that we believe could be solved with an end-to-end digital experience. Laurel Road's goal for the app was to boil down what could take days and multiple appointments with loan officers to a process that could be accomplished within a few hours on the web.

The evolution of the mortgage application has been wholly user-driven. The main challenge was to make an engaging, intuitive experience for users. To do this, we solved issues involving the difficulty focusing on tasks, showing the transparency of where the user was in their journey, and relieving user fatigue. When I became a part of this team, our first plan of attack was to restructure the user journey and form design. We wanted to display what was needed with forms whose messaging was simple and concise. Our goal was to simplify messaging and the journey with each iteration. As a result, we had a more streamlined journey, where we would guide the user more intuitively.

First Iteration of Product Pricing before arrival

Credit Health App

As a way to expand our products, I was assigned to be the Lead Designer in developing our Credit Concierge, a way for our users to view their credit score health, and receive guidance for how to improve their score.