Helping homeowners understand how to use their home equity

Homebot is a B2B2C business, and this project focused on the end user experience. Homeowners receive monthly digests with information about their home, which includes various modules personalized to their situation. One of these modules contains information on how to use home equity in a smart way. Based on changes in the market and customer feedback, we decided to give it a redesign to reflect new data and increase engagement.

Goals

• Identify and address usability issues with existing design
• Update content to reflect current market conditions
• Increase engagement

Process at a glance

Research

We had some idea going into this project of what changes we wanted to make, but we also ran a round of user interviews to understand how people interpret and use the existing design. The goal of this research was to make sure we preserved what was working, uncover usability issues, and build knowledge around users’ mental model of home equity.

I talked to six homeowners recruited through UserInterviews, focusing on the existing equity design. The insights were very useful for informing the design process.

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Example insight: Every participant was wary of taking out additional loans to use their home equity. They were sensitive to the feeling of being “sold to” but appreciated the information. Some of them were more open to the idea after exploring the information.

We took these recommendations from the research:

• provide more initial context
• streamline the options
• make exploring the details more enticing

Design

We knew that the vast majority of home equity loans are used for either debt consolidation or home improvement projects, and this information was confirmed in the research. In the interest of simplifying and streamlining the experience, we highlighted those two paths. I kept the intuitive color-coding, but removed the confusing numbers.

In writing copy, I focused on clarity and brevity without sacrificing accuracy.

The other options are still there, but less distracting. I wanted to keep them in the experience because it builds trust and confidence for the user to see a full picture even if they are unlikely to take those routes.

For the debt consolidation path, there was an opportunity to add interactive elements to calculate the possible savings. I built out different complexity levels to discuss with the team and go into testing.

Test and refine

I build a simple Figma prototype and ran unmoderated testing through Lookback and UserInterviews. I asked users to explore the prototype, interpret the information, and comment on whether they would use it.

Participants were able to understand the information well and several commented on the clarity and simplicity. They appreciated being able to calculate savings using their own numbers and knew that the next step was to contact their loan officer.

We made slight tweaks to copy based on the feedback but overall felt confident moving forward.

Implement

The implementation was fairly straightforward for the most part. I worked closely with the developer to make sure the calculations were correct. Most of our users are on mobile devices, so the bulk of the design work was focused on the mobile experience, but I also built out mocks for the desktop versions.

We also made sure all of the interactions were tracked so that we could monitor usage and make further improvements in the future.

Reflect and Learn

• This was a good balance of doing just enough research to feel confident in my designs while also moving quickly. We were able to get a good redesign out in the world within a couple of weeks, and still have room for iteration in the future.
• Writing good copy was crucial for this, so I spent a lot of time refining and trying different angles to make sure the information is clear. Based on the testing, the information was clear even though we drastically reduced the word count.

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