Historical UX work
A post-merger vision
2017 An affordability concept
Principal Experience Consultant / B2B2C SaaS / Experian Consumer Services
A slide from the final deck to the client. This slide shows the key points from the investigation that I did.
In 2017, Experian Consumer Services in the UK was looking forward to the Open Banking revolution in which consumers could authorize third-party services to connect to their personal bank and credit accounts for purposes like creating full financial dashboards or speeding up getting financial advice.
Problem
ECS UK had a very specific question for me:
Mortgage and other lenders in the UK have the duty to only lend what the customer can afford to repay.
That affordability check takes banks a long time to do, going through customer's statements line by line, classifying expenditures.
Meanwhile, Experian already knows exactly all the accounts and debts the customer has in their Experian credit report.
What could a service look like whereby Experian offers to do the affordability check for the banks by combining the consumer's credit report, the consumer's historical spending data from all their accounts through Open Banking APIs, and Experian's classification service? What kind of service makes sense to banks, what do they want to know? Would consumers feel their privacy was being invaded or would they jump on it? How much was the affordability check a barrier?
Process
A wireframe for a step in an concept service to quickly assess what kind of a loan a consumer could afford based on their spending.
There are a lot of considerations in creating such a service, and we didn't even know what they were.
- I started with desk research about consumer attitudes to debt
- I did interviews with the banking and classifications experts Experian put me in touch with.
- I would send weeknotes to my stakeholders on Friday with findings and further questions, and ask readers to forward them to any interested parties, who would often get in touch with me to answer more questions.
This became its own flywheel of questions, experts, answers, and new questions and new experts to consult.
- I also created a concept flow for the service where a user, who is looking at a specific loan or mortgage, logs in at Experian and sets up the Open Banking connections to their accounts so Experian can properly check whether this user can afford that specific loan.
This clarified the conversations about value-exchange enormously.
Results
The highest value result was that a group of experts on various aspects of consumer lending inside and outside ECS, including from banks, were finally talking to each-other, based on my research and concepts.
They dispelled notions that creditors would focus in detail on behaviors like gambling and entertainment, when all that creditors largely cared about was income vs outgoings.
The parties were also able to agree on how consumers actually do and don't massage their own spending to 'look good', and that consumers would share almost any data to get approved.
We also found out that affordability, in reality, is not a fixed number, but a range of what repayment is easy or difficult to afford, and that the rent was the deciding factor for most people about that.
2013 An update and rebrand of premium car-hire
UX Architect Director / B2C / DigitasLBI for Avis EU
Problem
The European Avis websites lagged. Their competitors had moved ahead with responsive designs and brand updates; Avis online no longer looked the premium brand they are. Avis was about to do a global rebrand to look more chic so it was the right time to start over. Their online team came to DLBi for help, and we pulled out the stops for them.
Process
We blended a 4-person UX team, under my UX Direction, with an equally-sized visual design team under the Creative Director, and a development team, to deliver the front-end designs and code in about 4 months. We inserted a break for user validation in 3 countries 3/4 of the way in so we could course correct if necessary.
Avis came in twice a week to be part of our Agile rituals, where we either created the backlog together and they prioritised the order, or we presented demos and they would steer us.
The hero of the AVIS website we delivered, including the fully responsive, location-aware vehicle chooser for rental dates and locations.
My responsibilities were the usual for any brand in my portfolio as a UX Director:
- Structure the design and research phases for maximum return on the budget
- Make sure we had all the research and insights we needed, or flag what was missing
- Make sure all research, insights, and domain knowledge were addressed in our designs
- Make sure the whole project team team, including the client, was aligned and clear on what success meant for every UX story
- Make sure the UX team kept working well with each-other and everyone else
- Sign off on all UX before it went to client
- Bring in design ideas and process when the designers go stuck.
and on this project, also give the UX Lead enough space to shine so they would stop being overlooked for promotion.
Results
Avis did not share numbers with us, but they fundamentally kept this design running, including the UX mechanics of the essential front-page sales funnel, for literally 6 years. They asked us to do a site for another brand.
The UX Lead was soon promoted to my level of Director.
Thanks to the Wayback Machine we can see the Avis redesign when it went live, including our recommendation to show all the cars in the same color to unbias selection, and to describe the classes of cars available with specific models as 'example', all to avoid disappointment at the counter.
2010 Selling a car to mothers and grandparents
UX Research and Design contractor / B2C / Wunderman UK for Ford EU
Problem
The two breakthrough images of the microsite that clearly answered the main questions the target audience had about a new car. It wasn't horsepower stats, they wanted to know about cupholders and cargo volume.
I was contracted to do a simple micro-site for a Ford car, the C-MAX, which came in two versions. Ford asked Wunderman to do some due diligence: the car's target audience was mothers and grandparents who transported young children and groceries. Would their usual standard car microsite of 'hero video + glamour shots + tech stats' site do for this audience?
Process
After 11 interviews with mothers who were about to buy a car I could tell Ford: "No, they hate the stats about horsepowers and such, and the exterior and interior beauty shots are nearly useless. They do not care. They want to know how much will fit in a car and where the mounts are for the child seats. That's the main thing. If you want a site that will help this specific population, show a top-down cross-section of the car with the mounts and storage, and put some luggage and people next to the car for scale."
I wireframed some example pages up to illustrate. The research and concept convinced Ford, and they went ahead with it.
Results
Results were not shared with me as I had already taken another contract when the site went live. What I do know is that I still see car manufacturers showing luggage and dogs and people next to the boot / trunk of family cars on their sites, so it wasn't the worst idea.
Here is the C-MAX stats page as found in the Internet Archive. (Should you visit, be kind about the visual design, it was 2010 and the designers did what they could.)
