De Hypotheker
New and improved tooling for advice and mortgage application
Hypotheker is one of most well-known brands in The Netherlands for mortgage advice. With the rise of new online competitors and a changing markets, it was time for Hypotheker to step up their digital game.
As with many services and products, more and more people find their way online. They are maturing and capable of doing a lot more themselves. People read, investigate, compare and review more and more, and therefore are better informed before buying products and services. This new level of self-reliance is something which brands have to adopt to. Also for Hypotheker it was time to acknowledge this fact.
It was clear Hypotheker wanted to service this new and rising group of self-reliant people. At the same time they acknowledged that there will always be a the ‘old-skool’ group of people that value the Hypotheker as it was, where personal advice and things are taken care of is worth something. The new propositions therefore became really clear: you can apply for a mortgage yourself (with a little help), or do it all together with the mortgage advisor.
With the new proposition in hand we started designing a new personal environment which can be used to gain advice and apply for a mortgage.
My role
Senior UX Design (Dept)
Project type
Online self service
Platform
SalesForce Commerce
Visual Design
Armand Kruizinga, Michael Vermeulen
Other UX
Ilayda Küçükosmanoglu
A personal mortgage file that supports self-reliance
Before we could start designing wireframes and the flow diagrams for the the personal environment, we had to overcome some challenges this new proposition we created. User research showed that people think they know what type of service level suits them best, but in the end it turned out, they don’t. Their situation turned out to be more complex than initially thought, or their (lack of) knowledge would soon or later be the threshold to continue. I added a rather small acquaintance test to the concept, which resulted in an advice to which type(s) of service was best suiting. Also the possibility to upgrade the service level on the go, was something what we came up with.
The mortgage file itself was separated in themes in which automated calculations directly show the result of a specific users' choice. This gave users a level of depth and insight in the their future financial position that was not done online before. It helped them to make informed decisions or explore other possibilities they would normally have to get advice on from a specialist.
To make sure we hit the sweet spot with this concept, we user tested several iterations. It was really cool to see that the design matured along the way and users were able to make informed decisions for themselves applying for a mortgage.
Using Markov's Chain Model to re-think the entire customer journey
Of course you also want people onboard and start using the new improved tooling and services. So we set to work on improving parts of the public website. With the help of some smart colleagues from our data intelligence team, we were able to use the Markov chain model to calculate and predict the customer journey more precisely. By having a better understanding of the customer journey, information and functionality could get served at the right moment in the customers' journey.
Looking back
This project allowed me to really show my problem solving skills. A mortgage can be a complex product, and every customer has its own personal needs and situation to take into account.
All these variables made a hell of a puzzle and it was up to me to challenge de Hypotheker to keep the concept simple and not to decay in jargon and old habbits. It took many sessions, iterations and designs on the concept to fine-tune it and making it fitting for both customer and business.