Possible Credit Card case study

Summary

I designed our first credit card.

Cool, right?

Framing the problem

This is how we brought a new kind of credit card to market.

First, we wanted to release a good product. Not a perfect one. The idea was to get this in the hands of our customers and get feedback.

Second, we needed to secure funding. Payday loans are traditionally very profitable but doing them in a customer-centric way is not. Showing the value of the product and the potential market would be the foundation of the new funding round.

Finally, we needed to iterate. Quickly. The first pass was never going to be perfect. We needed to turn our viable product into something valuable.

Because 67% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency.

A card has more benefits than a loan.

Customers could borrow up to $500 to get to the next pay day and they could pay that back over the next 4 paychecks with no interest and no late fees.

The Possible Card has a few advantages over a Loan. First, you don't to fill out a form, wait for approval and then transfer the money to a bank account. You can always carry a card with you or add your card to a digital wallet.

Build credit
with repayments

Money is available
immediately

Pay the entire
balance over time

No interest
for a monthly fee

Discovery

I inherited a lot of screens but very few requirements.

The first designer on the project was super talented. She had a ton of experience with 0 to 1 products and I was lucky to inherit a good foundation.

There was a vision. At that point, though, we didn't have a ton of consistency. We were also trying to understand what the requirements were. We made things up on the fly.

I stepped back to map the journey so we could build context.

We needed to align on what we were doing and why. For me this meant listening to people talking about the details of a passion project.

We mapped the entire experience and the relationship between the Customer, Possible and our external partners. This was a great onboarding resources as new engineers, designers and leaders joined the company.

The first step was updating our navigation for a new product plus a third future product.

We had some options, hub and spoke or a siloed heirarchy.

And we had tons of ways to handle the layouts.

We were able to create a new hierarchy for multiple products,
including some we didn't offer yet.

Testing and benchmarking the current experience

I ran usability tests to better understand our activation flow.

The biggest disparity was in the application flow. That's not great. This is the first impression people have with using the card and it was a confusing mess. Looking back, it's not difficult to understand why - we were trying to explain rules that we were also trying to uncover. Some of the information was inaccurate, some of it was confusing and some business decisions were just misaligned with the customer's mental model.

Redefining the application flow became a high priority task. This is where the customer is approved, sets up their payments, agrees to some legal terms and we mail the physical card.

The application flow

95%

Customer satisfaction

The activation flow

58%

Customer satisfaction

The dashboard

89%

Customer satisfaction

The payment flow

78%

Customer satisfaction

It was clear our big opportunity was in the activation flow

Clear success messaging

We started by clarifying our message. We removed the informal, branded messaging to tell the customer two things: they are now a Possible Cardholder but there's a few things we need to do before they can use the card.

Setting expectations

On the same screen, we wanted to let our new cardholders know exactly what we need from them and what options they'll have in the next few minutes.

We removed jargon and confusing details about how the card works so we could show the cardholder, rather than tell them, on the next few screens or when it was relevant.

Bias toward autopay

A core feature of the card, payday aligned payments, was only unlocked by using autopay. This was meant to make payments more manageable and to free up credit for unexpected emergencies.

The previous pattern defaulted to autopay but didn't do a great job of explaining what that meant.

A bit of delight

We used the payment section as a way to clarify some questions and wrong assumptions our customers had. We showed the payment dates which were based on the cardholder's paydays. We also showed the monthly fee schedule.

Many of our cardholders were delighted to find out that the first monlthly fee wasn't charged until the next month. The testers we talked to initially assumed they would be charged either in full or prorated for their first month.

Aware of the context

Many of our cardholders didn't realize they had a digital card number available while they waited for their physical card to be mailed. Both the loan and card approval process took about 30 seconds so loanholders and cardholders would apply at the moment they needed money.

Showing the activation status and highlighting the Add to Wallet feature gave these customers a faster way to access the money they needed while in line at the grocery store or gas pump.

A little reassurance

Except for a branding update, the final screen changed the least. We did manage to include a way for customers to change their shipping address in case of a typo. We've all been there.

Ultimately, this was more of an assurance of flexibility for someone who is probably multitasking. The feature was never used in our pilot testing but the cardholder sentiment was incredibly positive. It was a good first impression.

We increased customer satisfaction of our activation flow

From 58%

to 84%

Breaking the payday loan cycle and building credit

Summary

I designed our first credit card.

Framing the problem

This is how we brought a new kind of credit card to market.

Because 67% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency.

A card has more benefits than a loan.

Discovery

I inherited a lot of screens but very few requirements.

I stepped back to map the journey so we could build context.

The first step was updating our navigation for a new product plus a third future product.

We had some options, hub and spoke or a siloed heirarchy.

And we had tons of ways to handle the layouts.

We were able to create a new hierarchy for multiple products,
including some we didn't offer yet.

Testing and benchmarking the current experience

I ran usability tests to better understand our activation flow.

The application flow

The activation flow

The dashboard

The payment flow

It was clear our big opportunity was in the activation flow

Clear success messaging

Setting expectations

Bias toward autopay

A bit of delight

Aware of the context

A little reassurance

We increased customer satisfaction of our activation flow

Plus created a new dashboard to support more than one product.

Summary

I designed our first credit card.

Framing the problem

This is how we brought a new kind of credit card to market.

Because 67% of Americans can't cover a $400 emergency.

A card has more benefits than a loan.

Discovery

I inherited a lot of screens but very few requirements.

I stepped back to map the journey so we could build context.

The first step was updating our navigation for a new product plus a third future product.

We had some options, hub and spoke or a siloed heirarchy.

And we had tons of ways to handle the layouts.

We were able to create a new hierarchy for multiple products,including some we didn't offer yet.

Testing and benchmarking the current experience

I ran usability tests to better understand our activation flow.

The application flow

The activation flow

The dashboard

The payment flow

It was clear our big opportunity was in the activation flow

Clear success messaging

Setting expectations

Bias toward autopay

A bit of delight

Aware of the context

A little reassurance

We increased customer satisfaction of our activation flow

Plus created a new dashboard to support more than one product.

We were able to create a new hierarchy for multiple products,
including some we didn't offer yet.