Case Study

Backbase · Snr UX Designer · 2022-2024

B2B2C | Product-adoption

Digital Lending: Moving fast to understand a growing market appetite

TL:DR

  • 0 > 1 Product launched

  • ARR targets met

  • Insight-driven iteration

  • Design-led product innovation

My role in the project:

  • Market analysis
    Research and insights
    Cross-functional workshop facilitation
    MVP design and validation
    MMP scoping and definition
    Iterative product development

  • Miro
    Figma
    Design-System
    UserTesting.com

    • Sales colleagues to understand market needs

    • Discovery interviews with banks and users to understand product needs and expectations

    • Lead Product Managers to define scoping

    • Product and Engineering for design alignment via ‘Three-Amigo-Sessions’

    • Usability testing with end-users

Business Goal

Leveraging its proven digital-onboarding capabilities, Backbase wanted to seize a growing market opportunity within the digital lending space.

Business Move

A new value stream was established define, shape and deliver viable market offerings for both retail and business lending scenarios.
I was the first design hire within this scale-up.

The Goal

To operate lean and intelligently as a product function by focusing all effort on maximising key return on investment.

Design goals

What part did design have to play in the product strategy?

Short-term product mindset…

The immediate goal was to deliver a viable, working product—one that was not merely vapourware—which the sales team could confidently present to banks. We needed the offering to be MVP-focused (approaching MMP) to accelerate the sales cycle and create an immediate learning loop.

Design mindset…

As a designer within this quickly expanded team, the immediate goals were very clear…

  • Stay delivery focused - ensure that development velocity was not hindered by design workflows through the development of working patterns and standards

  • Fill any experience gaps in the end-to-end loan origination flow to ensure that our sale team had something to demo as soon as possible

The long-term goals were to…

  • Ensure that mechanisms were in place to support a continuous feedback loop with the sales team and banks to understand the products performance and fit within the market

  • Develop a research plan that would see discovery activities take place with banks and its customers to help identify any key product gaps and opportunities the value stream could explore further through clickable prototyping methods

Long-term vision…

With design leading on the strategic design-thinking, the aim was to consistently uncover valuable insights and opportunities that could then be translated into key pieces of iterative functionality or complete new product experience avenues.

Context

How could a digital onboarding flow become a digital lending experience?

To achieve this…

We determined that two core customer journeys—a 'loan calculation' and 'loan offer' journey—were necessary to help us deliver a viable end-to-end experience that could confidently be placed in sale-pitch scenarios.

Context…

The Digital Lending solution was powered by Backbase's FLOW product—a unique orchestration engine that lets banks build tailored digital experiences from a catalog of specialised business functions (or journeys). Think of them as digital LEGO bricks.

While FLOW’s key selling point is its flexibility, we needed an opinionated, demo-ready product-view that showcased an experience that would resonate with the needs of prospective bank customers.

Delivering a product

Expected interactions

Delivering design

Functionality gaps

The loan-calculator and loan-offer

The reality…

The loan-calculator and loan offer were not areas that required innovative design approaches; they were common and established journeys within the digital lending landscape. If immediate sales demonstrations were required, a minimal viable interface—such as a UI with simple 'loan amount' and 'loan term' selectors—would suffice.

My core objective was to deliver the designs for these critical journeys to the build team as rapidly as possible. Design output was strictly defined as an enabler, not a bottleneck, since we planned to iterate and refine quickly post-launch.

What was important to the user?

My initial challenge was balancing regulatory requirements against user experience: specifically, determining which of the data-points in a typical loan-offer were also necessary to display within the loan-calculator UI. Partnering with a user research I aimed to identify which of these data-points were most important and influential to the user's lending decisioning process.

Interactions…

While dropdown components were efficient to implement from a development standpoint, they failed to meet user expectations. Research showed users preferred the speed and interactivity competitor loan calculators offered:

  • Speed and Playfulness: Quick interactions and immediate calculation feedback helped users rapidly configure loan parameters and explore lending options.

  • Accuracy over aesthetics: Although users recalled and referenced 'sliders' from previous loan application experiences, our testing demonstrated they were really used effectively. When calculating loan values, users consistently prioritised accuracy by leveraging direct input and quick-select options, indicating that the sliders did not meet the required threshold for precision.

Outcome…

Within one sprint-cycle I had a design, enriched with user insights, ready for the development team to pick up and build as their second iteration - most importantly I had demonstrated what design could achieve within this sprint timeline and championed that these design activities should be factored in to all future design sprint-planning exercises.

The need for a snowflake component…

Although the use of a dropdown component for term-length selection would have fully leveraged the design system, it repeatedly misaligned with user expectations. Users frequently described the component's use as 'clunky' and 'slow.'

I therefore developed a custom 'quick-select' component, leveraging existing atomic design system methodology and communicated its status as a 'snowflake' unique to the lending value stream. Documenting this new component required the most effort but this effort was managed effectively, preventing any delay to our sprint velocity.

Ready for launch…

Due to the transferrable nature of the loan calculator's code, I was able to finalize the design for the loan offer experience while the squad simultaneously built the calculator.

We launched the full end-to-end loan origination experience (up to the offer stage) within the first quarter of the year.

With the sales team now equipped with a product, the next step was to gather market data to measure how well our opinionated solution resonated with customers.

Iterating the product

Uncovering issues

Proof of concept

Feedback loops

Identifying areas for improvement

Identifying opportunities…

To gain deeper insight into customer response during the sales cycle, I collaborated with the Product Manager to integrate discovery directly into the sales process. I attended all sales calls, frequently demonstrating early-stage, north-star concepts. This approach successfully fostered key customer relationships and opened channels for valuable, direct conversations with lending staff about the product.

Customer conversations…

Adopting a continuous research approach, I collaborated with the User Researcher to conduct ongoing interviews with key lending stakeholders across our customer base. The goal was to validate product alignment with customer expectations and current processes. This consistent engagement quickly uncovered a major, systemic deficiency within the product's orchestration design.

Expectation misalignment…

Our go-to-market approach focused on maximum feature exposure, requiring a lengthy, interactive stepper component to accommodate all capabilities. Although this complexity created friction and customer queries, it served as an unforeseen catalyst for discovery, providing deep visibility into customer operating models.

Technical spikes…

Working closely with the lead-architect to define the technical constraints and possibilities. I produced a target-state prototype that served as the squad's blueprint for technical spikes and was formally validated against customer expectations via usability testing.

During the technical exploration phase (spikes), I proactively ensured design system readiness by aligning with the team to modify and evolve the core stepper component to accommodate the newly defined technical requirements.

The issue…

The product had been built - for its go-to-market approach - to display as many (if not all) of the capabilities we could offer. This resulted in a sizeable stepper component that had to accommodate a lot of interaction steps. This immediately threw up questions from our customers, but also presented us with great insights in to their internal processes.

Resolving these issues…

Leveraging the success of the original platform offering, I drove the decision to iterate toward an opinionated core experience that was explicitly aligned with typical lending processes. My proposal focused on revising the orchestration flow to dramatically simplify the frontend, resulting in a more efficient and targeted user journey.

Pulling it all together…

Despite immediate management support and initial sprint allocation for technical spikes, global organisational priorities delayed the implementation roadmap by one quarter. I leveraged this delay to deepen design validation and iteration, while simultaneously developing a novel product insight thread that held promise for a new, valuable product offering.

Product opportunities

Market gaps

Influencing product

The thread…

End-to-end testing with banking customers consistently revealed a major pain point: the manual, cumbersome process of handling loan offers and application completion via email. This friction was amplified by user expectations for a clear, integrated communication channel with customer representatives.

The proposal…

My analysis led me down the path of conceptually proposing a new digital application portal where users and banks could securely log in to streamline the management of applications and required actions. This offering was strategically compelling because market research revealed a notable gap in specialised solutions for retail lending, providing a clear avenue for the Backbase product to gain a competitive advantage.

Gauging product appetite

Creating a narrative…

Armed with validated user insights, I spearheaded a focused narrative during one of the monthly Product Discovery days to introduce the concept. My key objective was to establish a strong strategic imperative that would successfully provide enough appetite for me to conducting some further conceptual exploration and testing with our bank customer base.

Strategically aligned…

After securing product leadership buy-in, I efficiently leveraged the existing design system to create a lean, integrated prototype. This prototype was immediately injected into the current product offering to gauge early customer and user interest.

Positive response

Potential validated…

Prototype testing proved invaluable: by contrasting users' past lending experiences with the new concept, its potentially was solidified. Users consistently highlighted that the portal would not only elevate their application experience but also provide a significantly improved sense of communication and transparency with the bank.

Leadership confidence…

The prototype design quickly achieved stability and, within one month, continued to yield key positive insights and strong validation from users. The exceptionally positive response secured the immediate endorsement of the Director, leading to a strategic decision to present the concept directly to key banking executives at Backbase’s annual Engage conference.

Bringing it to life…

I provided the Events Showcasing Team with the validated prototype and detailed user insights. This transfer of knowledge was essential for the team to rapidly craft an impactful and engaging demonstration script that was strategically aligned with the overall messaging and collateral for the event.

Success…

The demo generated substantial excitement and engagement at the conference, leading to numerous productive sales conversations. Leveraging this positive response, the 'Application Center' concept was immediately added to the roadmap, successfully justifying and securing the necessary business funding to launch a new, dedicated product squad for its development and integration.

Outcomes

Impact

Design as a key, influential stakeholder

Results and impact…

Initially, design functioned solely as an execution arm for the business-driven roadmap. By the end of my tenure, I successfully elevated the Design function into a strategic partner, directly shaping and influencing the product vision.

I am particularly proud of the following accomplishments:

  • Focusing on speed to enable live validation:
    By focussing my methodology on rapid deployment, I deliberately maintained a lean design approach that minimised process overhead. In this dynamic environment, prioritising speed brought the product to market fast, maximising the reward of testing and iterating on a live experience rather than over-analysing conceptual work.

  • Sales within the first year:
    $1M ARR - x3 new customers

  • Gaining trust:
    By prioritising the rapid delivery of the end-to-end experience, I successfully repositioned design as a trusted product partner and earned me the autonomy needed to drive critical post-launch discovery. This not only optimised the initial product but also uncovered key insights that led to a new, high-value product offering of the Application Center.

  • Grew teams:
    I contributed to team growth by successfully hiring two design roles: one dedicated to supporting the new Application Center offering, and one for the Retail product line. I then made a strategic internal switch to focus on Business Lending, where I was tasked with redesigning their most complex product, Trade Finance, which looked at leveraging the application center capabilities.

Moments of pride:

  • My success in this position stemmed from transitioning into a product-minded designer rather than solely focusing on execution and tool proficiency. This transformation highlighted the fundamental role of effective design communication in building compelling narratives that drive consensus and strategically influence business and product leadership.

  • My approach was fundamentally tied to the success of the new value-stream, ensuring every decision was strategically focused on maximising business value. I championed a lean methodology where rapid iteration and learning were prioritised over achieving immediate perfection, with the understanding that dedicated optimisation would follow. This experience deeply ingrained a highly efficient design practice.