Laurel Road Student Loan
Improving student loan refinancing journeys for doctors
UX/UI Design
Overview
Student loan financing is the backbone of Laurel Road, serving as one of their original and most profitable products. Alongside the launch of Online Banking, we identified a need to revamp the student loan journeys from visual, technical, and usability perspectives. Through user testing, research, and an internal design audit, we addressed multiple pain points, restructured the overall flow, and reduced unnecessary clicks. Additionally, we defined a new design language to bring clarity and reduce drop-off throughout this complex and lengthy process.
OUR CHALLENGE
Reducing Student Loan Application drop-offs while highlighting new product offers
Design Process
IDEATION PHASE
As the lead on this redesign and feature integration, I began by auditing both our current experience and those of our competitors to identify areas for improvement.
BEFORE
Multiple CTA’s across the page
Not a linear flow leading to frustrating errors when missing an input field
Significant drop off rates
Long scrollable page with navigation steps below the fold
SITE-MAPPING USER JOURNEY
With such a complex user journey with various paths mapped per user type, site-mapping was an integral tool for organization. Being such a light and nimble design team, we are continuously looking for efficient design solutions for navigating our expansive product journeys.
RECONCEPTUALIZING USER JOURNEY
One of the main challenges with our original product was the overwhelming amount of information and actionable items. Instead of using an accordion layout, I redesigned the flow to follow a progressive disclosure format, presenting one primary action per screen and establishing clear informational hierarchies. The goal was to prioritize the user. This new approach uses minimal, conversational copy to guide the user through the entire journey, providing a more intuitive and streamlined experience.
INCREASING CLARITY
The key pain point in any refinancing experience is keeping track of amounts and percentages. To address user drop-off and confusion around how rate discounts are applied, I redesigned this page to resemble an online shopping checkout experience. Given the compliance restrictions, expectations can be unclear. My solution was to align all the '+' and '-' signs to clarify the calculations based on future actions the user must take, making the process more transparent and intuitive.
USER RESEARCH AND TESTING
In an ongoing effort to better understand our primary user demographic, Laurel Road utilized various forms of research to inform our design decisions. One of the main goals of this project was to integrate our new product offering (online banking) as the primary selling point for the student loan product. The research below helped us determine how to present this feature in a way that would benefit our users the most.
FINAL KEY SCREENS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
Contributed to the delivery of over $819M in student loan refinancing and 1,244 new checking accounts in the quarter directly following these user journey redesigns, resulting in of 100% of our KPI goals
decrease in drop off rates in early parts of the refinance experience
Overall increase of applications on the mobile and web experiences, both pre and post-rates.
