Fundbox internship
Redesign of the onboarding process
Responsibilities: Ux/ UI design, competitor research, problem definition& solution proposal, HMW, microcopy
Project overview
While completing my academic degree, I participated in an internship at Fundbox, a company that offers financial solutions to small and medium-sized businesses in the United States. The purpose of the internship was to redesign the onboarding process.
The problem
Fundbox is an American fintech company, that found a unique way to assess small businesses for funding without a lengthy application process. With Fundbox users can apply for a loan in a simple way without submitting forms or going through complicated steps. Even so, the onboarding process has high drop-off rates.
40K
Users start the application
17K
Users finish the application
6K
Users
approved
1.8K
Users make first draw
Therefore, the goal of my UX research was to understand why drop-off rates are so high.
First,
Organizational research
As a starting point, I learned about the process of taking a loan in the USA. This raised the question - what makes Fundbox unique?
According to my research, traditional banks typically have a long and cumbersome loan application process, which may even last weeks. Also, during this time, loan applicants must provide a lot of information. A number of small businesses will also not be able to meet banks' minimum requirements. Therefore, Fundbox offers a unique and fast way to evaluate small businesses, enabling it to provide financing in a matter of minutes. Furthermore, the service is digital-only, making it possible to request financing from anywhere.
Second,
User flow
The process can be mapped into four stages:
1. Basic information
2. Accounting software
3. Bank account
4. Business details
Finally,
competitor research
I found direct competitors, who, like Fundbox, offer financial services. In addition, I found competitors with a long onboarding process, so that I could examine how they present it. I signed up for each of them and examined their onboarding process: the order of the questions in the process, how they are presented (number of questions in a stage), whether there is a progress bar, microcopy, and the intuitiveness of the process. I also wanted to examine how they deal, if at all, with the fact that the service is only digital, unlike a financing process provided by the bank.
During the competitor research, I discovered that the competitor's design and product language is guided by three principles, which create a unique user experience.
01
Transparency
Throughout the process, the user is informed how many steps he needs to complete, how long each step will take, and his progress is presented with a progress bar.
02
Security
In order to build trust in the product, the competitors provide detailed explanations due to the sensitive nature of providing financial details.
03
Humanity
Overall, all of the competitors utilize computerized processes with no human interaction whatsoever. However, most of the competitors employ microcopy to show there is a “human” behind the screen.
Conclusions
With these three guiding principles, the competitors create reliability in their products. And how do they manage to do it? By referring to three questions throughout the onboarding process:
What, why& how?
What
the user is required to do during the process
Why
is the user required to perform these actions, why it's relevant to the process, and why he should do it
How
the company intends to utilize the information users provide during the process
Following the research, I revisited the Fundbox onboarding process from a fresh perspective. Additionally, I watched videos of users using Fundbox through FullStory to see if any other issues could be identified. Ultimately, after meeting with Fundbox's data team, I decided to redesign the three screens with the highest drop-off rates .
Problem
statement
The current onboarding process has a high drop off rate
As I couldn't find a clear explanation for the drop off percentages, I proposed a few hypotheses:
01
Users are naturally reluctant to undertake financial transactions that may adversely affect their credit scores.
02
In the absence of human interaction, online users are nervous about completing sensitive processes.
03
Questions are not graded, the first stage already asks about the average monthly income.
04
There are too many steps.
Therefore, I believe that by maintaining the principles we have chosen (transparency, humanity, and security), we can increase the trust of the users and decrease drop-off rates.
HMW
My
solution
Merging steps and repositioning the questions
Highlight security and transparency in the process
Give the user the feeling that there is a human behind the screen
Design
Because it is a financial process, there are a number of legal restrictions that limit the ability to change and renew it. Aside from that, Fundbox wanted a focus on UX, not a redesign. Anyway, I've made some significant changes.
Merging steps
The process will be shortened to make it easier and less "intimidating".
New Text Fields
By changing the text fields, ToolTip can be canceled, so that the user can read the information without any additional effort.
Progress bar
As a first step, I created a progress bar that does not indicate the stage name, but only its number. Additionally, the bar shows the stage's progress. Then I decided that it would be important to specify the stage's name. Clicking on the progress bar also displays the progress percentage. However, the progress percentages could not be displayed for all stages, so I chose the option where the stage name is displayed at all times, as well as the progress bar being colored.
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Explanation screen
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As part of the principle of transparency, I chose to add a preliminary step before starting the application process. It is meant to demonstrate humanity by addressing the user by name. Additionally, it explains the steps and timeline for the process.
The first time I designed the screen, I aimed to give the user as much information as possible, but then I realized it was visually overloaded. Due to this, I decided to reduce the text, address the user by his first name, and turn the screen into a pop-up. My final choice was to illustrate the steps of the process visually as well as present a more factual reference and a timeline indication.
Preliminary screen before providing bank details
In order to reflect the security principle, I decided to explain the user what the next step will be (filling in his bank account details), and its consequences. Although Fundbox addresses the issue of security, the user must take an active step to get the information. I thought it was worth presenting it "in your face".
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Support icon
For the user's confidence, calmness, and to avoid frustration, I added a support icon that will appear regularly throughout the process. When the user clicks on it, a contact box will appear. A reference to customer service or a Q&A page is also provided, so the user can get all the help he needs.
Last screen redesign
This stage is only available to users whose loan requests have been approved. However, at this point, the user is presented with two financing options. In order to refine the selection options, both options are presented on the same screen, and the user can select. Additional information can be accessed by clicking the arrow.
Microcopy
Unlike the other steps, this step can be skipped. At this point, the user can connect his account management software to Fundbox. Although the step is optional, it's in the company's interest that users don't skip it. I decided to add text explaining why the user should perform the action in order to encourage him to do so. In addition, I changed the color of the button from blue to white to make it less intuitive to click.
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High-fidelity screens
