Enabling eMortgage Closing and Investing from Homebuyer to Big Banks
Led design for new vertical and products: eVault and eSign. As we built a mortgage bank, I was selected to be interim design manager, leading design strategy. We built a reputation as the most intuitive eVault on the market.
In 2 years, we scaled the platform and achieved industry compliance approvals, evangelizing, educating, and finally pushing to market. When clients weren’t biting, we built an eSign product to bundle our offer and connect our bank with the full product ecosystem.
Role
Lead designer
Team size
11+
Product type
Web, Mobile B2B2C
Timeline
2 years, 2022–2024
Company
nCino Mortgage (formerly SimpleNexus)
Results
Government and industry approvals, Stood up a new company vertical, Signed 5+ competitor contracts
Growing System Knowledge and Team Alignment to Scale Enterprise Capabilities
The market downturn affected the whole industry. Our company was also in terror with layoffs and multiple reorgs. Despite working on eVault for many years, customers were not buying when we went to market. Our team had shift our focus to win the hearts of enterprise clients, meaning we had to expand our features to offer scale, transparency, analytics, wider use cases , and eSignature (yes, our own tamper-sealed DocuSign).
eVault is a mortgage banking software that allows investors (i.e. big banks, government agencies) and sellers (lenders) to buy, sell, and manage mortgage-backed assets. It connects to many systems, must be verified and registered, and upholds numerous compliance and legal requirements to be recognized by the industry.
After demoing for government approvals and compliance tests, we earned a reputation of being the most intuitive product on the market, however this didn't affect conversion. We needed to lean into our strengths, while also expanding in strategic areas that'll lead to conversion.
Major features of this product stage include:
Bulk actions for transacting on eNotes
Sending, receiving, storing non-mortgage documents to reduce switching software
Audit logs at the user, transaction, and document levels for legal and compliance reference
Reporting to gather business insights on transactions and partner relations
eSign, a signing solution that allowed documents to be signed and tamper-sealed on Web and Mobile and be accessible across the product suite
Bulk features for large volume tasks at speed
Audit logs for compliance and legal needs
Error handling is key for self-service and compliance
Reporting allows clients see analytics on their partner relationships
Explainable copy and complementary features empowers users to run with it
Consistent interactions and capabilities across use cases reduces navigation friction
Workshops and Mapping Experience to Ease Company-Wide Collaboration
Enterprise clients wanted a scaled version of eVault, and also an e-Signing solution that tamper-seals documents, that works well across the product ecosystem. This was overwhelming as a designer running products at the end of the lifecycle. Thankfully I could depend on the design team to try new things.
I started a weekly workshop series where we aligned on design patterns, use cases, and our stance on experience. I held larger workshops at UX Retreats where designers mapped their users' needs and experience, then we combined it all into one large ecosystem. This built our team's confidence and unity across persona teams, and helped us pinpoint areas for more cohesion and less frustration (Read more maturing design leadership).
I met with my product lead, tech lead, and sometimes our VP, weekly to stay aligned on scope, context, and strategy. We had deep strengths in our own subjects, so when we dove into the nitty gritty nuances of problems, our perspectives expanded. Deeper conundrums were taken to the greater team for more focused, technical problem-solving.
My longtime collaboration with my tech lead led to scalable systems that spread across our work and influenced the work of neighboring teams. Decisions we made years ago stood the test of time as we architected another later of product on top of it. Staying in touch with customer service, tech support, marketing and sales also gave us the opportunity to align client and user expectations with product reality.
User flows that loop seamlessly for easy navigation
Admins preview customer’s experience to reduce avoidable errors
Fill Gaps in Navigation, Clarity, and Intuitive Experience While Welcoming Uncertainty
As an outsider to the mortgage industry, I used my own questions to drive how I educated users. Tooltips, intuitive flows, a mix of laymen terms alongside industry jargon.
"If our users was training another person, how can we make that learning curve quick and seamless?"
I also leaned on fool-proof navigation and risk-management thinking to manage friction, transitions between tasks, and informative tools when things go wrong.
"Users just want to get in, get out, and manage their human relationships."
Teaching user experience principles and upholding transparent team communication helped us scale intuitive decisions while expressing Why our work mattered, building the supportive momentum we needed to launch a powerful tool for mortgage's secondary market.
eSign in addition to eVault was necessary for enterprise clients to fully digitalize the loan process in one product suite
Outcomes and Takeaways
When we launched our new features, we pleased to sign on 5+ client contracts in a quarter, majority from competitors! This massive accomplishment continued on after I left the company, thanks to the help of our scalable decisions, diligent documentation, tight collaborations, and team's dedication to building the best product we could.
This project taught me how hot teams impact product success, and how important it is to have well-rounded information on market, product, technology, and users when influencing product adoption.
Team
Design lead
Caroline Luu
Product lead
Nelson Chou
Tech lead
Shane Herd
VP of eClose
Jay Arneja
Developers
Aaron Burrell, Brett Hayes, Kris Acton, Matthew Corbett, Ryan Jensen, Trevan Reese
QA
Brian Mackay
Key partners
Settlement Agent team, Brittany Cates, Jay Harvey, Chris Arnold