Building an International Small Business Redesigned Application for User Efficiency
Stakeholders (Project Team):
Senior & Associate Product Designers
Project Manager
Product Manager
Partner (Mexico) Team
Development Engineers
User Experience Researcher
Accessibility Solutions Manager
The Product
Mexico Platinum SBS (Small Business Supplemental) Card
The card application allows business owners (Company) to add and give supplemental cards to their employers (the Joint Obligor), Legal Representative, and Beneficial Owners (if applicable).
The Problem
To build a OneAmex Application integrated with GO2 Unify (customer service backend).
In this project, we tackled the challenge of optimizing the design workflow to streamline the development of the online small business credit card applications. The application forms were long, laborious, and confusing for users. For consistency, this application design process would then be applied to other card work streams in Mexico for Small Business and Consumer.
The above confusion was causing applications to be “pended” (i.e. not completed and going into pended limbo status). This caused increased calls to Customer Service using up resources and time, also a loss in successful credit card approvals, and a loss in revenue for American Express.
Mexico Project Confluence page 01
Mexico Project Confluence page 02
My Role | PI Planning
The previous designer was having some issues with the stakeholders, resulting in tensions. My manager assigned me to enter as the Senior Product Designer & Experience Manager and give guidance and reassurance to the line of business and partner team in Mexico that the project will be completed according to the requirements and on schedule. As the Senior Designer I led the design process with an Associate Designer - worked closely with the Project Manager, Product Owner, the Partner team in Mexico, Accessibility team, User Research, and development team.
User Flow Experience
Requirements
Remove 102 input fields, going from 361 inputs to 259. Increase the credit bureau inquiries for credit checks from one to two. Design for four (4) applicant sections: 1) the Company (owner); 2) Joint Obligor; 3) Legal Representative; Beneficial Owner(s). The user must upload a minimum of five (5) documents for verification. Two credit bureau inquires are made: one for the company holder and one for the legal representative.
SBS Company Application Fields
SBS Companies: Flow Logic
SBS Company Go2 Journey
Design / Solution Process
Wireframes built in Figma - detailing when certain dynamic fields will display and other notes for collaboration and the Market to consider. Hi-Fidelity mock displaying the entire application journey. Displaying Figma comments the project manager and I used comments regularly to iterate and align on requirements and edits.
First iteration: Wireframes (01)
The hi-fidelity mocks, the entire journey in Figma
First iteration: Wireframes (02)
Heuristic Review
Mural - is a web based collaboration and “white board” platform that supports team brainstorming, ideation, alignment, sharing mocks and more. Below are examples of using Mural for an internal heuristic review with a handful of team members including several Design Directors, Product Designers, UX Researchers, Product Partners and the Accessibility subject matter expert (SME).
Final Mocks
Mural - is a web based collaboration and “white board” platform that supports team brainstorming, ideation, alignment, sharing mocks and more. Below are examples of using Mural for an internal heuristic review with a handful of team members including several Design Directors, Product Designers, UX Researchers, Product Partners and the Accessibility subject matter expert (SME).
Some mocks display the comments in Figma, the project manager and I used comments regularly to iterate and align on requirements and edits.
My Analysis
This was a fun yet challenging project because Mexico (as any foreign market) has some very different cultural differences and user expectations. Along with the U.S. based Project Manager we had to provide guidance and best practices with internal and external research to back-up our guidance and suggestions. There were many-many design iterations, more than I could count, but the design process took a handful of months until all stakeholders signed off. We did have a successful launch which improved successful card applications and decreased the need for users to call into customer service.
Figma prototype screenshot