Launching and Evolving nCino eVault for Enterprise Adoption
I led design for nCino's Closing product suite (eVault & eSign), overseeing its transformation and enabling enterprise expansion during a volatile market. My role included product strategy, systems design, visual design, and cross-functional execution to secure high-value contracts and accelerate adoption.
Outcomes
Signed 5+ enterprise contracts
Achieved full compliance (Fannie Mae, MISMO)
Market differentiation through design in a highly regulated space
Reduced operational costs of $4K/month and reduced cycle times by 66% for clients
Established alignment across multi-disciplinary teams including Marketing, Customer Success, Support, Product Development, Design
Role
Lead designer / Interim Design Manager
Team size
11+
Product type
Web, Mobile B2B2C
Timeline
2 years, 2022–2024
Company
nCino Mortgage (formerly SimpleNexus)
Designing for Scale and Strategic Value in Shifting Market
When we brought eVault to market, we had a strong foundation but low conversion. Amidst a volatile market, we decided to refocus our efforts on enterprise clients and their needs for auditability, security, and scale. Clients also required an integrated product ecosystem experience to successfully switch to our tooling.
I first addressed this by delivering on our market differentiator—polish and intuitive user flows—then applied systems thinking and education to innovate, scale, and simplify. Features included:
A document signing solution for secure processing and storage
Bulk actions and support for broader document and transaction types
User- and organization-level reporting
Audit trails and explainable UX copy
Workshops, Shared Patterns, and Designing with Complexity
To reach our next milestone, we scaled our communication to align our roadmap and vision with market insights. As leads, we listened to supporting teams—Support, Sales, and Customer Success—and aligned internal product decisions with external client and industry conversations. My tech lead, PM, and developers collaborated on major architectural upgrades and edge cases.
To scale the user experience for enterprise teams, I initiated a weekly design team workshop to align on patterns, personas, and strategy. At larger retreats, I facilitated experience mapping to connect our product ecosystem through the lens of user roles.
This strategic enablement helped us navigate shifting priorities and technical trade-offs while balancing user, business, and architectural needs.
Relationship mapping
Alignment across the product ecosystem while building critique rituals
Product ecosystem mapping
Making Complexity Feel Simple
I wasn’t a mortgage expert when I joined, but that became an advantage—I used my questions to inform onboarding, tooltips, and guidance logic. To scale our user tasks, we asked: “What if our users are delegating to new team members?” We prioritized team dynamics by designing a forgiving interface for high-stress environments:
Plain language with just enough industry terminology to satisfy managerial users
Clear error messages and failure states with actionable guidance
Simplified navigation and connected flows to save time
This strategy helped reduce support tickets, freed up our teams for higher-value work, and addressed the emotional core: “Let users get in, get out, and focus on the human-to-human work.”
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
eSign in addition to eVault was necessary for enterprise clients to fully digitalize the loan process in one product suite
User flows that loop seamlessly for easy navigation
Admins preview customer’s experience to reduce avoidable errors
Outcomes and Takeaways
Once we launched our enterprise features, contracts followed. We locked in 5+ contracts and was named "most intuitive vault" by Freddie Mac, a government approver and investor. nCino's expansion into the mortgage secondary market was set, providing an offering for larger clients. As for clients, our products led to operational savings for $4K/month and 66% reduction in loan lifecycle times.
Quieter victories that stuck with me are:
Design team became a strategic unit as we aligned and supported, laying the grounds for design leadership.
Design system adoption! My developers were unsure until the design team became sure and started teaching instead of preaching.
Investor team felt seen after 2+ years of unsung work.
Launching eSign made horizontal problems seem possible despite the cross-functional hassle and tech debt.
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