CreditView

Helping BMO customers achieve real financial progress

Responsibilities

• UX Design

• Visual Design

Timeline & team

• Launched 2023

• 5 month timeline

• Product Designer (me), Product Owner, Content Strategist, QAs and Developers

The tool helps customers understand how their financial decisions could affect their credit score by comparing their real credit score to a simulated one based on which options they select, for instance, getting a car loan.

CreditView also helps users improve their credit scores and how they use credit by providing free educational resources.

Based on the project brief, the product and marketing stakeholders wanted to redesign the CreditView page to increase content engagement, targeting individuals who wanted to increase their credit score as well as newcomers who wanted to learn more about credit and how to build it in Canada.

Stakeholders also wanted create a competitive edge in terms of promoting credit related content as many financial institutions were lacking in this area.

Problem Definition and UX Design

I worked with the content strategist to design a page that demystified credit scores for clients while informing them how CreditView could help

After reviewing the CreditView page, I realized it didn’t speak enough about the benefits of a good credit score, what factors affect it or any good credit-building habits. Essentially, the content wasn’t engaging because it was too focused on product features and not on providing educational value to clients.

After brainstorming and sketching some ideas for the page on my own, I collaborated with the content strategist to create a layout that focused on educating visitors about the following:

1. Defining what a credit score is and giving a breakdown of the scores

2. Why credit scores are important

3. Factors that can affect a credit score

4. Credit building habits

5. How CreditView can help clients on their credit journey

Based on my review of the heat maps, I noticed most visitors to the page were coming from mobile, so to encourage visitors to explore CreditView, I included screenshots of it from the BMO app and breakdowns of its key features. I also included the app store CTAs to make it easy for user to download and explore.

Balancing Priorities

As project goals changed, we had to find ways to balance business priorities while also providing customers with the educational resources they needed

As the project went on stakeholders' priorities shifted, they asked us to include a cross-sell to highlight our credit products across loans, lines of credit and credit cards.

To manage the scope and stick to the previously agreed timelines, we all agreed on using existing copy for the product cards. After discussing the request, the content strategist and I agreed to include the cross-sell section lower on the page. We did this to avoid coming across too sales-driven too early in the page experience and keep the page mostly focused on CreditView and financial literacy.

CHALLENGES

To avoid delays in the schedule due to challenges with the newly implemented CMS, I consulted with the design lead on that team to discuss workarounds

As the redesigned CreditView page would be launched in the new Contentful CMS, I met with the product owner and lead dev on that team to discuss what was technically feasible.

Additionally, as this page would be the first dynamic, non-article page launched in the CMS, and I was responsible for setting up the page and pulling in the necessary modules, I attended several training sessions.

However, as I learnt more about the CMS, I realized the product cards in the CMS didn’t fully match what was in the existing design system.

As a result, I had to figure out how to accommodate the page content while staying as close as possible to the approved designs to avoid project delays. To get some guidance, I reached out to the design lead on the CMS team to discuss the best workarounds or substitutes for the desired modules.

Visual Design

To make the concepts on the page more engaging and easier to digest, I created simple charts and reused icons from the design library, updating them when necessary to fit the goals of the redesign

As one of the main objectives of the redesign was to increase customer engagement, I focused on using charts and iconography to help break up the copy and explain different concepts while maintaining the overall visual interest of the page.

For the credit score factors chart, I had to adjust the design several times to explain the factors in a more interesting way that was still accurate without relying on percentages because we couldn't verify them, and the legal team felt this could raise an issue. Also, due to the new CMS and the module I had to use, I had no clear guidelines on image ratios, so it was a bit of a trial-and-error process to figure out what design and size would work best on the page.

For the credit score breakdown chart I originally used standard brand colours but to keep things consistent with the in-app/secure experience, partners asked me to adjust the colours which I obliged.

Outcome

Although I faced some hurdles due to the new CMS, the redesigned CreditView page saw a 33% increase in visits

Thank-you for reading!

Wanna learn more about this project? Let’s chat

You can reach me at: kerleajoseph@gmail.com