Discover Personal Loans

The Discover Personal Loans website serves as a comprehensive platform for managing unsecured loans, offering tools for checking rates, calculating debt consolidation savings, and uploading financial documents. It features a secure, 24/7 account management portal that allows for Autopay setup, payment tracking, and direct communication with specialists.

Project Overview:

This project focused on creating a best-in-class application experience designed to simplify the early stages of the user journey and increase top-of-funnel engagement. The goal was to guide users through the application process with a clear, intuitive interface while minimizing friction and confusion.

The Problem:

The existing application process lacked a cohesive user flow and presented several usability challenges that created friction for new users, which negatively impacted engagement and completion rates.

The challenge was to design a streamlined experience that:

Clearly guided users through the application flow
Handled edge cases and error states effectively

Reduced cognitive load and unnecessary steps
Supported scalable design and development

Goals:

The project focused on improving the top-of-funnel experience by:

Creating a clear, step-by-step application journey
Improving error handling and edge-case experiences
Creating scalable design documentation for development

Reducing user friction and confusion
Establishing a consistent visual and interaction language

My Role: UX Lead

Responsibilities included:

Designing the end-to-end user experience
Developing wireframes and high-fidelity designs
Work with engineering on edge cases and error handling
Using UX data insights to guide design decisions

Creating user flows and journey maps
Conduct Interviews & Usability tests
Defining the visual language and interaction patterns
Delivering design specifications and documentation

Approach

1. User Journey & Flow Design

I mapped the full end-to-end user journey to identify friction points and opportunities to simplify the experience. This process helped establish a clear and logical flow that guided users through the application process.

2. Wireframing & Interaction Design

Low- and mid-fidelity wireframes were created to test structure, navigation, and interaction patterns before moving into visual design. This allowed the team to quickly iterate and validate the experience.

3. Visual Language & High-Fidelity Design

I defined the visual language for the product to ensure consistency across the experience. High-fidelity mockups were developed to communicate final design intent and interaction behavior.

4. Collaboration with Engineering

I worked closely with developers throughout the implementation phase, guiding the experience for edge cases, error handling, and system constraints to ensure a seamless customer experience.

5. Data-Informed Decisions

UX and behavioral data were analyzed to validate design decisions and prioritize improvements that would reduce friction and improve completion rates.

Deliverables

End-to-end user journey maps
High-fidelity prototypes
Design specifications and documentation

UX flows and interaction models
Low- and mid-fidelity wireframes
Data-informed UX insights

Outcome

The redesigned experience introduced a clearer and more intuitive application flow that reduced complexity and improved usability. By aligning product, design, and engineering teams early in the process, the project established a scalable UX foundation and improved the overall customer experience during the critical first stages of engagement, resulting in higher conversion rate and reduction in time spent on page.