Faith
Reeves
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CreditCare is a responsive web and mobile platform that empowers its users to take charge of their credit health and make informed financial decisions. CreditCare offers tools that allow its users to check and improve their credit score, explore credit card options, and increase their overall financial literacy. CreditCare's mission is to improve its users' financial confidence and health.
When it comes to financial management, many individuals face challenges due to a lack of access to resources and financial literacy, particularly in understanding credit health and making informed decisions about credit cards and financial planning.
How might we foster greater financial well-being and confidence in financial decision-making?
A web + mobile platform that provides comprehensive resources, tools, and guidance, empowering individuals to effectively manage their credit health, make informed decisions about credit cards, and enhance their understanding of key financial concepts.
Try the prototype below!
Keep scrolling to explore how CreditCare was made.
I started my research by looking into how much Americans know about the credit system, checking out different sources online to see what insights I could find.
Findings according to the Annual Credit Score Survey
I continued my research by making user surveys and distributing them to 50 participants to find out what my users know about credit and credit cards and to gauge their general financial knowledge.
Takeaways
I created user personas to develop a clear understanding of what my users are like and what their goals and challenges are concerning credit and finances.
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Users lack clarity regarding their credit scores, often not fully understanding how credit scores are calculated or what factors impact them, leading to confusion and uncertainty about their financial health.
Users feel uncertain about the features and implications of credit cards, often not fully understanding the benefits, fees, rewards, and potential risks associated with different credit card options.
Users do not know essential concepts in credit management, such as the importance of paying bills on time, managing credit utilization, and the significance of credit history.
Users do not fully understand all the ways to improve their credit score, indicating a lack of clarity or guidance in navigating the steps and strategies necessary to enhance their credit health effectively.
After identifying the core struggles my users had surrounding credit, I came up with ideas for CreditCare that would help address their challenges.
Users do not fully understand credit scores.
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CreditCare should provide a check credit score page that clearly explains all the details of users' scores.
Users were confused about credit card features and which card would be the best match for them.
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CreditCare should include a credit card match page that offers personalized credit card recommendations based on users' scores.
Users have limited financial knowledge.
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CreditCare should include an FAQs page containing answers to common financial questions and clear definitions of financial terms.
Users do not fully understand how to improve their credit score.
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CreditCare should include a boost score page where users can add bills paid on-time to their account to improve their credit score.
After planning out the information architecture, I created a sitemap to visually organize Credit Care's content and structure.
After making wireframes, I created a low-fidelity prototype for usability testing and to provide an interactive representation of my user flow.
How a user might check their credit score
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How a user might compare credit cards
Using the low-fidelity prototype, I conducted a moderated usability study with five users to find out what problems they might face in their journey and what opportunites for improvement there were in the initial design.
Goals
Following the usability study, users completed a System Usability Score questionnaire that gave my initial design a score of 30, making it "Poor/Not Acceptable." This score indicated that I needed my design needed to be iterated on and further improved.
During usability testing, the feedback I received from users indicated a lot of frustration, confusion, and unmet expectations that also let me know my design needed more improvement.
Based on feedback from the usability testing, I iterated on my design to improve the platform's navigation and ease of use. I focused on simplifying what users found to be overly-complicated and adding the information and features that users felt were missing.
In addition to web, I decided to also design a mobile version of CreditCare since users expressed the desire to acess the platform on any device.
Users had to enter their information again each time they wanted to check their credit score.
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Users only need to enter their information when creating an account. After that, they can simply log in.
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Users did not realize that the bookmark icon was for selecting cards to be compared.
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Change the compare button to say "Compare This Card" for clarity.
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Users found it difficult to remove cards from the comparison page because they had to go back to the previous page to deselect them.
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An 'X' icon was added to the top left corner of each card to make removal easier.
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When users clicked 'Boost Score,' they didn't know what to expect. During the process, they were confused about why they had to enter certain information.
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Users receive a step-by-step explanation of how CreditCare's Boost works before they need to enter any information.
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During the usability study, users struggled to find where things were, so I conducted an unmoderated card sorting exercise with 20 users to improve the information architecture of CreditCare 's header menu.
Old information architecture
New information architecture
Before any further testing, I converted my design into a high-fidelity prototype to more accurately represent the final product and provide users with a more realistic interaction experience.
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I decided to conduct another moderated usability study with five participants to validate the design changes and further investigate user pain points and opportunities for improvement.
Goals
Following the usability study, users completed a System Usability Score questionnaire that gave my second design iteration a score of 65, making it "OK/Marginal." This score indicated that my design wasn't quite up to standard and that I should continue iterating.
During usability testing, the feedback I received from users still indicated that there was confusion, unmet expectations, and lingering usability issues. This feedback let me know that I should continue iterating on my design.
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Based on feedback from the usability testing, I iterated on my design to improve the app's usability, resolve user pain points, and meet user needs.
Users were hesitant to enter sensitive information due to a lack of clear security and encryption messages.
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Security and encryption messages have been added so users feel more confident entering sensitive information, such as their SSN.
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Users understood how to boost their score but were unclear about how the process actually worked.
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An explanation of how the process works was added before the instructions on boosting their score, clarifying the entire Boost Score process for users.
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Users did not realize they could select more than one option for their credit card needs because the choices were presented as radio buttons.
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The radio buttons were changed to checkboxes, allowing users to select multiple options for their credit card needs, making the process clearer and more flexible.
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The credit card recommendation quiz asked for the user’s credit score, which was redundant since the information had already been collected.
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Removed the redundant question about credit score and replaced it with a more relevant question about whether users are looking for a personal or business card.
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After making design changes, I decided to conduct another unmoderated usability study with 5 participants to validate my design changes and ensure that all of my user needs are met.
Goals
I reevaluated the strength of my design using the System Usability Score and found that it is now a 90, which means it is "Excellent/Acceptable". This score let me know that users are satisfied with my solution and my design is strong enough to be considered complete.
Overwhelmingly positive user feedback also let me know that my design was ready to be complete.
