About DBT Capital

DBT offers growth loans to small and medium-sized enterprises. By analysing financial data, they find security structures that traditional banks overlook. Their goal is to offer a fast and smooth loan process to their customers.

About the project

The goal of the project was to design a usable, efficient, and pleasurable portal that enables the users to streamline their process. The tool was used by the employees to:
  • Overview and manage customers and company groups
  • Upload and manage SIE files
  • Financial analysis of customers and prospects
  • Administer loans
  • Overview of the loan portfolio

My role

I was the sole responsible UX designer on the project. I planed and conducted all of the research and user tests. Along with creating wireframes and user flows. I collaborated closely with an UI designer that created a design system alongside the project. Together we delivered all of the designs to the developers.

User research

I started off by mapping out the user experience of the existing portal to identify problem areas and improvement opportunities. This was done through interviews, observation, and pain points workshops. The findings gave me and the tech team a good understanding of the user’s everyday work and the challenges they had.

Based on all my findings, I created a list of the user groups jobs to be done. The list served as a basis for determining the features that needed to be prioritized, focusing on those that would deliver the most valuable impact.
Material from pain point workshop

The problem

During the initial research I found out that there was a lack of trust of the product, which made the users not wanting to use the portal at all. Besides the low trust the portal had a lot of usability problems. The previous portal had been built by developers and had for some years grown in an unsustainable way. The problems had created a lot of frustration and it got to the point where the users started to solve their problems by hacking the system by or used external sources instead of the internal one.
  • Difficult to navigate
  • Inconsistent layout and spacing. No use of grid
  • Lot of noise, making it hard to focus
  • No thought of the accessibility guidelines
  • No error messages
  • No user feedback when user input data
  • A lot of unnecessary steps in order to finish a task
While investigating, I saw that a significant portion of the problems came from technology being built on an idealized conception of how employees should operate, rather than an accurate reflection of their actual workflows. This lack of alignment with reality resulted in the misdirection of problem-solving efforts, as it tackled the wrong issues.

Explore & Define

When I had a good understanding of the users, the existing design and the reason behind all the functionalities, I started creating a new information architecture and site map. The goal was to create a navigation system that allowed the users to find what they were looking for quickly and by that reduce the time spent searching. I mapped out all the features that were going to be redesigned, together with the usability issues and requirements. When a plan was set, the redesigning started.

Page structure

The process

The following process were used to create a feature:

  • Sketches and wireframe
  • User feedback
  • High fi prototype
  • Usability test
  • Iterate on feedback
  • Deliver design to developers

User feedback & Usability test

Feedback and usability test with the users and stakeholders were carried out throughout the whole project. Because of time constraints we started testing high fi design early in the process to be able to get more detailed feedback from the users faster. After every usability test the solutions were iterated and improved based on the feedback.

Prototype

The final result

After 6 months of work, a first version of the portal was done. We had created a user-friendly portal that streamlined employees' daily work. Thanks to intuitive navigation and a clearer structure, they could easily find relevant information. Clear error messages and instructions reduced the strain on technical support. The new design improved the relationship with the portal, and confidence in the technology increased, which ultimately contributes to DBT success and growth.

One example of the new design

Post launch user feedback

After the first version on the portal was released and the users had worked with it for about one month, I interviewed the users about their experience to gather insights for the next version. One of the findings was that some of the financial graphs that we created were to complex for some of the users to understand.

In addition to the interviews, I had a card sorting workshops to gather the users mental model. They were asked to group 20 different features based on how they belong together. The workshop resulted in a reorganization of one of the pages. Two new tabs were added to create more focus among the different tasks.
Material from Card sorting workshop

Business value

I created an understanding for the significance of understanding our users. By constructing our solutions in the reality, we successfully tackled core issues rather than the fallout they generated. I ensured that the development of the new portal closely mirrored the needs of our employees and not assumptions. This approach redirected the organization's efforts toward solving the right problems.

Takeaway from the project

When a company is fast moving and the plan changes often you need to work smart. I’ve had to plan my work wisely because you can’t afford putting too much time on things that aren’t crucial. I manage to do it by setting time frames for every step of the process. One of my takeaways is therefore that not everything can be perfect but you can still achieve significant results with little time.