MyCredit

A mobile app for Vancity members to understand and build credit, in order to better support their financial well-being. The four-week project is a hypothetical product for Vancity, and is not affiliated with the brand.

My Contribution

As the project manager, I ensured that the project's individual parts were being completed and were cohesive, and decided when to stop iterating and start polishing. As the content strategist, I wrote copy that was consistent with our three design principles: personal, clear, and hopeful. I also ensured that the credit-related content in MyCredit was beneficial and easy to understand, which I validated by conducting interviews and think-aloud testing with 9 participants.

Problem

Despite the importance of credit scores in personal finance, an estimated 56% of Canadians have never checked their credit score and 31% don't know how to improve their score.

"With 250,000 of them – close to half of our members – interacting with us almost entirely online or via our mobile app, we’re under pressure to deliver even more mobile and digital functionality."

Vancity's current website offers some credit help, but it lies 4 levels deep in navigation. Furthermore, their existing banking app has yet to provide resources for credit management.

Solution

MyCredit is a companion app for Vancity members to manage their credit and set goals that encourage credit building, to better support their financial well-being.

Process

After discovering the study by BMO, we decided that as a values-based non-profit organization, Vancity would be a great client to design for. We audited Vancity's existing products and services, and identified frictions.

From secondary research, we drew two main insights: that people are reluctant to check their score, and that many don't feel the need to until a lender requires it.

With what we knew, we framed the problem as follows:

How might we provide guidance that is not overwhelming, encourages members, and provides them with tools to reach their goals?

After looking at the member segments of Vancity, we chose to focus our project toward the 'disappointed applicant', because compared to the other segments, there was more opportunity to improve their experience.

The target audience for MyCredit was Vancity members ages 25 - 45, as this is a period where many people are purchasing cars, paying off student loans, or might be thinking about a mortgage.

From our research, we developed a persona to guide us in our process.

We then mapped out the customer journey to identify where we could improve the experience.

We developed three design principles to reference throughout the project and keep us focused on what was most important.

Of course, the project wouldn't be complete without user testing, so throughout the 3 weeks of developing the project, we iterated and validated.

A teammate and I conducted user research with nine participants over the course of the project, seeking to validate three assumptions. While the project was generally well-received, it was noted that the onboarding needed to be improved.

We then got to work making iterations and finalizing MyCredit.

Product

Curated information helps members reach their goal by giving them clear, achievable steps within a reasonable timeframe.

In the case that a member's score is declining, after user testing, we decided to always project their score as if they were taking on the good habits presented in MyCredit. Research participants felt that there was enough information in the rest of the app to understand that their score was low, and that they didn't want the visual reminder that it was declining.

In the case that a member has no credit, MyCredit offers an explanation of why it's important and recommends ways to start.

Details

The following explains the details of our design decisions and highlights where decisions were made in MyCredit.

Wrap-Up

Key Performance Indicators

Dependencies

Appendix