Prosper was founded in 2005 as the first peer-to-peer lending marketplace in the United States. Since then, Prosper has facilitated more than $23 billion in loans to more than 1,400,000 people. Through Prosper, people can invest in each other in a way that is financially and socially rewarding. Borrowers apply online for a fixed-rate, fixed-term loan between $2,000 and $50,000. Individuals and institutions can invest in the loans and earn attractive returns.
Our goal for this project was to redesign the whole end-to-end experience of an existing loan verification process, aiming to enhance user experience, expedite the document upload procedure, and decrease the volume of calls to our support team.
Problem statement
The current end-to-end experience of our loan verification process results in a suboptimal user experience. Users find the document upload procedure unclear and difficult to track, leading to an increase in both inbound calls to our support team and outbound calls from our verification agents. This places additional strain on our resources and has the potential to impact overall customer satisfaction. There is a pressing need to redesign this process to make it more user-friendly, efficient, and self-explanatory, reducing reliance on support and improving user satisfaction.
Design process
As the lead designer on this project, I collaborated with our product manager, UX researcher, UX writer, developers, and infrastructure engineers. Our combined efforts focused on creating intuitive and user-friendly designs.
We began the project with a discovery and research phase. User interviews were conducted to pinpoint prevalent pain points, and the insights gleaned from these interviews were shared with our stakeholders. These findings illuminated recurring issues, offering a deeper comprehension of user challenges. Additionally, a competitive analysis was carried out to gauge our system against industry best practices.
Prosper: Loan verification
Insights & pain points
After accepting an offer, many people were left wondering what the next steps were.
Once they'd submitted their documents, there was a common question: "What's happening with my application?"
We recognized that we didn't make it clear from the start about the exact documents we needed.
A lot of folks were puzzled, thinking, "How long will Prosper take to review everything I sent?"
And honestly, sometimes we asked for more paperwork than was necessary.
With the invaluable insights from user feedback in hand, we moved into the iteration phase. We refined our designs, making necessary adjustments to enhance user experience and functionality.
Design solutions
Create a friendly welcome page for users after they say yes to an offer. This will help them understand what happens next and set clear expectations.
Add a progress module so users can easily see where they are in the application process and what's left to do.
Make the document upload section easier to use. Use simple terms to show if a task needs doing, if it's under review, or if it's all done.
