Integrity Student Loans
Overview
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Integrity Student Loans is an AI-Driven Browser Extension App to help students from different countries to understand how online Student loan applications work and it guides them to make the optimum use of loans.
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With an A.I. focused on student loan expertise, the startup aims to accelerate the speed and scaling of student loan processing.
Due to confidential terms, I have modified the actual design concepts and deliverables.
Role
UX designer
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Product Strategy
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User Research, Interaction
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Visual Design
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Prototyping & Testing
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Sitemap, Wireframes
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Coding (Development)
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Insight gathering
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The scope of the project
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User Testing
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Project duration - 12 Months
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“How might we make the process of applying for multiple international student loan applications more User compatible, efficient & transparent?”
Prototype Demo
Understanding the Problem
More than 1 Million students come to the States for higher education
Whereas, Indian Students are the 2nd highest population at 202,014 (2018 Data).
And that is why I hypo zoomed on the problem for South Asians or more specifically Indian Student Community in the USA.
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Problem statement
The process of applying for a loan online is very complicated and time-consuming. The application process takes 30-60 minutes to complete which is more than a traditional application method. It turns out that students apply for Education loans from different providers to get the best offer, which means filling out similar information repetitively. It will be logical to state that the Design of Application Form is at the fault here. The policies for the Loan Application are not clear enough for the user to understand, which leads to missing out on important information such as how much the student will end up paying once the installments will begin. As well as, the requirement of documents is not transparent which ends up with a delay in approval.
Double Diamond Method
Defining the scope of Problem
Identifying
Problem
Areas
Problem
Statement
Surveys
Interviews
Define
High Fidelity Prototype
By providing the required information to the ISL Application, the user can utilize that over any Online Loan Application by autocompleting feature.
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Prototype Screens Link
High Fidelity Prototype Screens Link
Project Vision & Solution
Even though there have been so many advancements in Online experiences, Form Design in Loan applications needs a major upgrade. The ISL Application will not only help the user to submit multiple loan applications but also help them understand the requirements, policies in detail.
By providing initial information, the user will receive the list of potential Lenders.
Utilizing LLM and Generative AI technology makes it even more efficient.
Key Features
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Ability to jump on to different steps
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Understanding loan details with LLM/Generative
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AI agent (Chatbot) to help
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Ease and interactiveness
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Use of Icons
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Use of Norms according to the user's culture (Ex. Fall Semester is called August)
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Pop up information
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Choices of color with white balance
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78% of users found these features helped them with the web experience.
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The separation between Mandatory and Optional requirements to save user's time
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Customer Care service without emails and cellular calls
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This gives the user instant guidance with anything that they have a question about
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In case, they require additional information, a feature to make calls via internet
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Feature to auto-complete the fields with notification for which specific information is been retrieved
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Color highlights to indicate the completed fields
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Branding
I compiled a list of colors, different moods that my brand resonates, and asked users to pin the colors with a title. And the following colors were part of the final mood board.
The Logo represents the interrelation between Indian International Students and the USA with both currencies under the security of the Umbrella i.e. Integrity Student Loans Application. The following color palette was selected from the mood board images selected by the targeted User-group with 83% votes.
User Feedbacks
Pop up information to Save a lot of time and reduces confusion. This app makes a boring and lengthy process easier and interactive.
- Miranda Iversen (Medical Professional)
The use of pleasant colors and different color weightage helped to identify inactive elements as well as completed fields
- Stuti Sampat (Architect)
The use of Icons added additional help to identify the information, Choices of color, and white space makes it feel a lot less stressful and assuring.
- Srinithi Jagannathan (Architect)
The Loading pop up helped them realize how much work the ISL app is doing at the backend
Ability to jump on to different steps as per the user’s convenience.
- Jailynn Wells (Educator)
User Personas
Stakeholder - International Student I Lenders
Aspiring Ashwini, she wants to study further in the field of Computer Science and wants to pursue that in the States, she requires an approved loan so that she will get a student visa as she doesn’t have financial backing. And the only option is to apply for loans in the states but that process stresses her out.
This is Enthus Arav, he wants to study further in the field of Graphic Design, he has limited financial support, so to cover the cost of attendance he requires a loan for some portion of his cost of attendance. To get the best offer, he is planning to apply for multiple lenders but filling out the same information, again and again, frustrates him.
This is Dedicated Divya, she is in her final year of Architecture Grad school, but unfortunately, a loan from her home country only covered 3 semesters and now she requires an additional loan and she finds the online application process is a very tedious job just the way it was in her country and doesn't understand the policies as well.
Primary Research
I conducted 13 International student interviews. In which I asked 5 questions regarding their experience.
The goal was to
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Understand problems with the whole Online Application experience.
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Stress-points during the task completion.
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What the process lacks?
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What could make it better?
​ Interview Key-Insights
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The process of applying for a Loan is lengthy.
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Application has so many complex steps that it is very difficult to understand.
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The whole experience is very text-heavy, and hard to comprehend.
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Policies are not conveyed clearly.
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Too much cognitive load
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Status of application is not transparent
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Too much information to process
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Each process takes 40-60 min or more to complete the application
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1-3 weeks for approval.
The feedback that I received was the point when I decided to create a 3rd party platform where their problems will be addressed.
User Journey
Phase
Touchpoints
Goals
Mindset
Experience
Emotion
Opportunities
Lender
Research
Log in/
Sign Up
Data Entry
Approval
Process
Document Submission
Understanding Policies & Rules
Research
Choose a lender
Provide Information
Get Partial
Approval
Collect/
Submit documents
Read through policies
Find out which lenders offer loans to their specific needs and then submit loan application/s
Create an account on the lender’s website
Provide required info through the Loan application
If an application gets approved, a representative calls
Gather all the documents, and email them to the lender
Carefully Read through policies
User doesn't know which lenders are the best for them, so goes through reviews on forums
Once they choose, it’s just like logging in to social media
Time-consuming, frustrating process
Why wait for them to contact us, why don't they give us the list of required documents
Contacting local authorities, parents to gather all the documents
Too much text to go through, they just proceed and submit
Verifying info is a hassle, have to speak with people who have already done it so time-consuming
Very familiar process, not at all challenging
Have to go through different documents to type all the required info
After providing a huge amount of info, if they get approval, wait for the lender to contact you
Information in advance would have helped the user to collect the required documents
Too much text to go through, they just proceed and submit
Verified information from a trustworthy platform, so no need to do the research online(Timesaver)
Sign-up can be done with Social media, to make it faster, one less login info to remember
Experience can be simpler, shorter, informative, and interactive
A list of potential documents can be provided so the user can gather them in advance
Instead of email, can be submitted through the application only
Policies and schemes can be highlighted so the user understands what they are signing up for
Form-Design principles
I did extensive research to gather information regarding the fundamentals of
Form-Design from different sources.
Research topics -
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Usability in forms
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Plain language
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Passive to Proactive
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Why large device is preferred for important tasks such as an Online application?
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Lender's existing User Experience
Among all the Loan providers I have chosen these 3 because they were the ones that needed the updates the most.
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MPower Financing
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Ascent Student Loans
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Prodigy Finance
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I conducted research and used their existing Online Application system to find out the pros and cons.
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Loan Application website needs improvements in -
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Making the process shorter
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Require improvements in Form Design arrangement
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Trying to minimize Customer Service requirement
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Communicating Policies clearly
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Better ways of providing Document requirements upfront
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Process and Approval period is longer than conventional loans
There is no consistency in Form-Design
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Form fields are unnecessarily extended beyond the requirement
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Interaction points such as the Drop-down menu or Calendar icon are placed very from the form
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Spacing between different fields is not definitive, it is difficult to differentiate which title belongs to which form field
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Conditions are special terms that are not in readable font sizes
Inconsistency Form-Design on different pages
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Form-Design principles suggest placing Title above the form field along with additional spacing to distinguish the correlation with specific elements
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The use of Icons along with Titles help the user to identify the requirements regardless of cultural impact
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The user cant jump to specific pages at their convenience, they'll have to go through each and every page in between
Text-heavy and no interactive elements
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The Application Summary does not use a variation of text size, font, or colors to easily provide the information
(This causes errors)
Outdated Terms and Conditions Layout
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These policies and terms are not to inform the user but only for the legal reasons
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The user doesn't get the important information unless they really go through the entire list of terms
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One of the reasons why the majority of Loan applicants don't even know what they're signing up for
MoSCoW Method
I used this method to define the features of my project, after listing out all the features, I listed down all the "Must have", "Should have" & "Could have" features
i.e. MoSCoW Method, which is represented as below, On the basis of experience maps, user’s needs, and challenges, I created a list of different features for the application, the most important features as well as the ones that won't be included. This helped me to prioritize the required features like distinguishing between necessities and luxuries. I will go through them during the demonstration.
Must Haves
Should haves
Could haves
Wont haves
