Case Study: Digital Repayments
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1. Meeting Customer Needs
Client: Capital One
Business: Unified Repayments
Team: Manager, Product, Developers
Manager: Amy Chick
Role: Lead Sr. UX Designer
Tools: Figma, Mural
Joining the Capital One repayments team was one of the best professional experiences I've ever had. My manager, Amy, is a true leader, and inspired me to bring my A game to the table. We were a light, dynamic and intelligent group, consisting of Product, Content and UX.
Our challenge was to bring Capital One into a leadership position with its competition in the digital repayments space. Recent data had shown that we were not meeting customer expectations.
The research team had done preliminary customer research, which we used as the source-of-truth, the foundation in which we began our journey.
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2. Discovery
Working closely with the Product team, we began the divergent journey into the Discovery phase of the design process. We created a whiteboard, and here thought around research discoveries, documenting anything relevant to the task at hand.
One of several Mural boards for team collaboration.
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3. Problem Spaces
The team began to orbit around three problem spaces.
- Conflicting Financial Goals
- Neurodivergent Needs
- Changing Shape of Households
Searching for the problem.
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4. Changing Shape of Households
Taking a deep dive into the humans and their needs, the changing shape of households idea began to gain traction.
The Nuclear Family structure is often considered the traditional or conventional family model, though research has shown that this is not as prevalent in modern times as people would believe. The shape of the household has indeed changed.
Modern household types:
- Nuclear Household (22%)
- Boomerang Household (52% Millennials)
- Extended Family
- Sandwich Household / Multigen
- Unrelated / Roommates Household
Searching for the problem.
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5. Hierarchy of Needs
I associated Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with what our Research team discovered in their preliminary findings. Indeed there was a correlation between the two. With that, we agreed we were on the correct path of discovery as we try to define our problem.
Jobs to be done, based on Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs
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6. Defining the Problem
The State of Spending research has shown that, “We don’t recognize the emotional transaction” - Carol Glover
We set out to create a payments experience using actionable data and insights to provide transparency in moments that matter and proactively offer personalized, flexible solutions that help customers confidently make decisions across their entire financial ecosystem.
So, what is the emotional transaction in these modern households? We began to explore those user journeys.
Hypothetical user flows.
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7. Storyboards
Riley has just graduated from college and landed her first full-time job, and now receives a consistent paycheck. This is the first time she has to manage her finances, independent of her parents.
Storyboards were done to illustrate a users journey.
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8. Hypothesis
Our hypothesis statement was: Data visualization will encourage more informed decision making when it comes to payments. The questions to explore:
- Does data viz help influence the payments decisions customers make?
- Does data viz help customers with spend management?
- Does this approach to content increase comprehension of payment impacts over our static descriptions?
Initial approaches to data viz should be clear to users and intuitive to use. Ultimately, phases of data viz need to clearly illustrate payment impact for our in-market customers.
Data visualization early concepts.
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10. Research Results
We started with one group of 8 participants. There was one prototype and the same set of questions/tasks for each participant. We recruited active credit card holders/users responsible for making payments toward their balance.
I went through each video, documenting participants feedback and compiling them into excel spreadsheets for synthesizing. The colors represent the overall feeling / feedback from the participant.
Raw research data in excel spreadsheets.
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11. Key Findings
Participants understood the data visualization component, and some expected it. Comprehension was high, and participants understood the impact of their payment based on the different option selected in the prototype.
Participants said the data viz component would motivate them to pay more. Explicitly seeing payment impact and removing the need for mental math could encourage in-market customers to make higher payments as a result, lowering float cost and potentially the number of revolving accounts Month-to-month.
Aditionally, Participants want to see interest owed in the data viz component. As noted in the initial round of research, participants want to see how much interest they’re responsible for paying, and how their payments decisions impact interest owed.
Summary of the research key findings.
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12. Visual Design
I worked with the Design Language team to design the data visualization component to not only suit our needs, but also in a way that it could be leveraged by the larger design group, and be added to the library as a universal component.
Visual designs in collaboration with the Design Language team.
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13. In Conclusion
In conclusion, we Discovered what the customers goals were and Defined what their challenges are. We Designed and conducted user research (twice!) to validate our hypothesis. Finalized the visual design, and gained approvals from our stakeholders, including Product and Engineering teams. Then Delivered to said teams for launch!
Unfortunately, shortly after handoff, budget cuts resulted in termination of contractors, of which I was one.
In retrospect, my experience was one of text book UX process, as well as meeting some of the best and brightest people. It was truly a heartbreak to leave such great people, but I am thankful for the experience.
“Michael Bradley, your humility and growth mindset are among your best qualities. Thank you for fighting every day for a better customer experience, and your willingness to be vulnerable.” - Amy Chick, Payments Team Lead & UX Manager.
Accolades from my leader, Amy.
