Early to Credit
My role: Lead content designer
Timeframe: October 2022 - January 2023
The problem to solve
New members join Credit Karma who don’t yet have a credit profile, meaning they won’t have credit scores to show. The first-time app experience for those thin file or early to credit members wasn’t ideal. There were empty score dials without any context about why these members didn’t have a score to display, and there was no education or clear path laid out to help them build credit and eventually get a score.
The process
This project started out as a two-week design sprint to present a potential solution to our CEO. I worked alongside our Director of Product Design and other design managers to dig through research, create a persona, build out a prototype and put together a final presentation to show executive leadership. The work was well-received and, soon after, was slated into the roadmap as a ship-track project.
I served as the project lead on the ship-track project. I led ideation/working sessions, helped hold user testing interviews with early to credit participants, took the work through team crit, and worked closely with my cross functional partners on design and product to iterate and, ultimately, create an experience that would clear a path to help members build credit.
Final design
Challenges
Information overload: One major challenge was how to communicate to members, with little to no knowledge of the credit system, about how it works and how to build a score without overwhelming them. I tried to keep the content as clear and concise as possible and made sure members were getting the right content at the right time in their journey. Contextualization was key.
Showing progress: Building credit takes time but showing members that they’re making progress is can help them stay motivated. I recommended we break out the credit journey in steps and used the timeline component to help users know where they are in the process. This acted as a roadmap and also a checklist to allow them to mark their progress. The progress bar was used to replace the empty score dials on the homepage and served as another way to show the user that they’re making progress.
Outcome
After this project went live to a small experiment group, we saw a lift in secured credit card applications and Credit Builder sign-ups. We eventually ramped it to 95% of thin file traffic on Credit Karma and continued to see significant lifts across the board in retention, revenue, and engagement.