Objective

The primary aim for this project was to significantly improve Rocket Mortgage’s existing Escrow experience for our clients. Our main focus was on revamping the information being presented in this section, ensuring that it was both practical and comprehensive to a wide audience.

By removing technical jargon and streamlining complex content we sought to create a user friendly and accessible experience for all of our clients. Our goal was to empower our clients with a clear understanding of their escrow process, allowing for a more self servicing experience without the need for our client support team.

Overall this project not only aimed to simplify the lives of our clients but also that of our client support team. Allowing them to focus on more specialized and complex calls.

Timeline

From the time of the kickoff to the last round of research we conducted the project took around 4 months. However the product was not fully launched and ready from the dev team till almost a full year later. Mostly due to a very backed up work log.

Goals

• Can users understand their escrow analysis?

• Are they able to answer the questions that they have? or do they feel as though additional assistance is required

Step 1: Define the problem areas

Since the current Escrow experience was already live we started identifying areas for improvement by consulting our customer support team. The design team used these insights to create a new prototype for the first round of user testing.

To ensure a comprehensive user test, I had the whole team participate in a collaborative white-boarding session. Based on their input, I crafted the test, then shared it back with the team for feedback. Once we had agreed on the research questions hopeful outcomes I then conducted moderated interviews with 10 homeowners using UserTesting.com.

Step 2: Interview Users/Analyze Findings

Once we found the users that we were going to interview, I scheduled times to speak with all of them. Through UserTesting.com we were able to conduct moderated interviews where the users would share their screens with me and we would walk through the Escrow Experience together as I asked questions along the way.

Once the interviews have all been completed. I took all of my findings and I put them into a white-boarding tool. Generally I start this process by separating everyone’s answers and color coding their responses. From there I like to see what patterns or similarities I can find between the users before sharing the results with the team.

Step 3: Wash, Rinse, Repeat!

For a project like this we would generally go through 3-4 iterations of designs. Getting more specific and focusing on different areas with each round of testing.

Example: After the first round of interviews we had discovered that users had a difficult time deciphering the graph that we were using. While conducting the live interviews I was able to ask follow up questions around the graph, specifically trying to see what ways users were hoping to see the information be represented. Based on these responses the design team was able to come up with alternate ways of presenting the data which we took into the second round of testing.

Key Findings

• Users were able to understand the information that was being presented to them and made them feel as though they could make an informed decision.

• During round two we tried A/B testing two different versions of a chart to see if one was able to illustrate the data being shown in a more effective manner. We discovered chart A had a much higher rate of comprehension than chart B.

• Upon completion of this project we were able to reduce the number of calls to our customer service department in regards to escrow by 70%.