RBC CLIENT MORTGAGE RENEWAL TOOL EXPERIENCE (MRTx) REDESIGN
PROJECT DETAILS
Timeline:
Jun - Aug 2024
(3 Months)
Role:
UX Researcher, Interaction Designer,
Visual Designer
Collaborators:
Designers (Me),
Business,
PMs, POs
The content of this case study is protected under a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA). The case study presented here is intended to showcase a high-level view of the project without compromising the privacy or intellectual property of RBC.
Project Summary
The Mortgage Renewal Tool Experience (MRTx) Redesign was a collaborative effort between the HomeX, Mobile Banking, and Consumer Banking Design Teams at RBC. The primary goal was to simplify and streamline the mortgage renewal process, empowering RBC clients to discover personalized renewal offers and complete the renewal process within minutes. This redesign focused on creating a seamless, user-friendly experience that allows clients to quickly and confidently renew their mortgages directly from their mobile devices with just a few taps.
Impact
Currently in Pilot Launch for Mobile Banking with Improved Initial User Satisfaction Feedback
First Large-Scale Collaborative Effort: Brought together three design teams across the RBC Design Organization, marking a milestone in cross-team collaboration.
Accelerated Development Timeline: Achieved end-to-end design and development within under one year, with the pilot release beginning in August 2024.
Enhanced Mobile Experience: Improved visibility through updated mobile banking app entry points, leading to increased overall user satisfaction.
Boosted Client Retention: Anticipated higher client retention rates due to a streamlined UI and decreased task completion time for users.
Research-Driven Improvements: Redesigned user flows based on iterative usability testing and research, ensuring the final product aligns with user needs and expectations.
How might we help RBC clients to quickly and efficiently renew their mortgages themselves with more confidence?
PROBLEM SPACE
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the Canadian housing market, with changing housing preferences and historically low borrowing costs driving record levels of new lending (see chart below). RBC anticipates a large wave of mortgage renewals in late 2024 and into 2025, as many clients who took advantage of low rates will face higher interest rates during renewal, further intensifying the already stressful process. With limited resources to manage these clients in-person at bank branches, the Mortgage Renewal Tool (MRT) was redesigned to address this challenge by streamlining the process and encouraging more users to renew their mortgages online. RBC is targeting all levels of service by trying to design solutions for internal Mortgage Brokers and Partners, RBC clients, and Adjudicators through the Mortgage Renewal Tool (MRTx), Mortgage Application Portal (HomeX), and Mortgage Adjudication User Interface (MAUI).
Despite the MRT's previous availability, adoption had been low, prompting a redesign focused on enhancing usability and customer satisfaction. Through iterative design and testing, the goal was to create an intuitive, human-centered self-serve platform that would reduce foot traffic at branches, alleviate client stress, and improve the online mortgage renewal experience.
The new MRT tool enables users to:
Mortgage Exploration: Users can explore and customize mortgage options tailored to their financial goals.
Rate Locking: Secure preferred rates for added predictability and peace of mind.
Co-Borrower Signature Tracking: Monitor co-borrower signature statuses to ensure smooth application processes.
Exclusive Online Discounts: Access special renewal discounts to enhance value and savings.
Streamlined Mortgage Management: Leverage a user-friendly interface to manage mortgages with greater confidence and convenience.
(Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, 2021)
CHALLENGE
Increase user adoption of the MRTx by leverage previous resources and work cross collaboratively across the organization to redesign a new mortgage renewal experience.
ROLE & RESPONSIBILITIES
As the UX Researcher for the Mortgage Renewal Tool Experience (MRTx) Redesign, my primary focus was on validating design solutions to ensure they aligned with user needs and expectations before development and deployment. My research efforts aligned with broader business goals (enhancing customer loyalty, improving mobile banking engagement, and reducing churn during the mortgage renewal process). My key responsibilities included:
User Research: Led 56 unmoderated usability testing sessions and 1 A/B test specifically targeting RBC clients, with carefully defined exclusion criteria to ensure the accuracy and relevance of the data.
Design Validation: Focused on validating specific feature implementations and testing the full end-to-end flow of the MRTx tool, including interaction, visual, and content design. This was done through real-world user scenarios using the UserTesting platform, ensuring that the tool was intuitive and met user requirements.
Synthesizing Insights: Analyzed and synthesized the feedback collected from the usability tests and A/B tests to extract meaningful insights. These insights were crucial in identifying areas of improvement and validating successful elements of the design.
Collaborating with Design Teams: Worked closely with interaction, content, and visual designers, providing them with actionable feedback based on user data to improve wireframes and prototypes. This collaboration was essential for guiding further design iterations and ensuring the final product designs were both user-friendly and effective.
Collaborating with Stakeholders: Scheduled and presented at weekly meetings with stakeholders for updates on research efforts to align with goals from leadership in development, product, and business. These meetings provided the framework for maintaining and promoting feedback culture, ensuring continued prioritization of UX, design transparency, and shared sense of ownership of the MRTx tool.
Ensuring Usability: Played a key role in ensuring the usability of the MRTx tool by continuously refining and validating the designs throughout the project, ultimately contributing to a seamless and confident user experience for RBC clients.
RESEARCH TECHNIQUES:
Focus Groups
Interviews
Usability Testing
A/B Testing
TOOLS:
Slack for communication
Mural for Research Planning, Note Taking, Analysis
Figma for Wireframes, Prototypes
UserTesting for testing platform
WebEx for video calling for interviews and focus groups
ANALYSIS METHODS:
Qualitative Data Analysis
Coding
Thematic Analysis
Affinity Diagrams
Narrative Analysis
Content Analysis
Qualitative Data Reduction
Data Organization & Synthesis
Research Synthesis/Data Reduction
Prioritization Grid
Periodic Analysis
Cohort Analysis
User Insights Visualization
User Journey Maps
Data Visualization
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
To thoroughly understand and validate user needs and expectations, I employed a multi-faceted research approach that included both generative and evaluative studies. For the exploratory phase, I conducted semi-structured interviews and focus groups to uncover the specific challenges and pain points users encountered during the mortgage renewal process. These methods allowed me to gather deep, qualitative insights that informed the initial design concepts and ensured that our solutions were grounded in real user experiences.
For the evaluation phase, I conducted unmoderated usability testing and A/B testing to rigorously assess the effectiveness of our designs. By observing user interactions in natural, unmoderated settings, I obtained authentic feedback on how well the designs performed in real-world contexts. The A/B tests provided quantitative data that allowed me to compare different design iterations and make informed decisions based on user behaviour.
Throughout the research process, my primary focus was on maintaining a user-centred approach, ensuring that every design decision was backed by robust data and aligned with the genuine needs of our users. This methodology not only validated our design solutions but also reinforced our commitment to keeping users at the forefront of our design process.
ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY
After conducting usability tests, interviews, focus groups, and A/B tests, I employed qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques to systematically review and categorize data. Using thematic analysis, coding, and narrative analysis, I identified recurring user pain points and patterns. Throughout the synthesis, I also used cohort and content analysis to delve deeper into our user behaviours. I used Affinity diagrams and prioritization grids to help organize the insights and highlight design opportunities. For future review and to enable cross-team collaboration, these analyses were documented in Mural with guiding actionable design improvement notes.
To maintain alignment with the broader team, I planned and led regular shareback sessions of research findings with stakeholders across the organization. During these sessions, I presented the synthesized insights in data visualizations through presentations, ensuring that interaction designers, visual designers, content designers, product managers, strategic directors, and developers were all on the same page and communicate our findings effectively, without needing the in-depth technical background to understand. These sharebacks facilitated a collaborative environment, where feedback loops were established and maintained regularly so that design decisions were continually refined based on the latest user insights I was able to extract from the research I conducted.
By effectively synthesizing research data and sharing these findings across the organization, I played a crucial role in ensuring that our designs were not only user-centered but also aligned with the strategic goals of the project. This collaborative approach ensured that the entire design team was empowered with the knowledge needed to create a more intuitive and effective Mortgage Renewal Tool for RBC clients.
CHALLENGES & SOLUTION
Overall, the research I conducted was able to be leveraged for insights on our redesign. Due to the short deadline, some features had to be deprioritized due to resource capacity but the MRTx is now able to provide RBC clients with a shorter and more enjoyable self-serve mortgage renewal experience. The redesigned tool led to significant improvements in both usability and user satisfaction based on feedback and testing results.
As one of the first cross-collaborative projects across multiple product design teams, there was a lot of adjustments. Working with so many designers and researchers meant I had to be proactive with setting the common goals and expectations within each of the meetings I ran. As the MRT team spearheaded the project, we also learned to quickly get everyone up to speed with our previous work and ensure all our collaborative sessions were efficient and productive. We developed better methods for communication, knowledge sharing, and scheduling meetings. Moving forward, these learnings will be used in other cross-collaborative projects to foster creativity and effectivity.
Although we focused on a lot of improvements for the interaction and visual design of the MRTx, we also found there were pain points that were uncovered from research in content. One challenge we faced during our testing for our advice section was user confusion. Users consistently struggled to navigate the renewal process due to unclear language, leading us to prioritize a content revision. We solved this by simplifying the language and trying to provide more transparency in the mortgage renewal process based on user feedback, leading to a smoother user experience.
NEXT STEPS
As MRT begins it's pilot rollout in August, further research will be conducted to catch issues in usability of the platform, allowing us to maintain an iterative design loop. Features that were deprioritized before rollout will also be revisited for feasibility, as needed.
WHAT I LEARNED
This is a three part series continued on the two other case studies from my RBC internship.
This was my first role as a UX researcher, my previous positions were all design-specific, so it was a new experience for me and I genuinely learned so much within these 8 months. I'm fully confident in running my own research studies from end to end. The confidence I gained while being in this position has been unexpected and I feel much more well-rounded as a UX designer now having competency across so many specialties.
Through this project, I gained invaluable insights into aligning research findings with strategic design decisions through all my shareholder meetings. I learned the importance of iterative testing, as we conducted research on each feature we wanted to implement, and how it enhanced user satisfaction. I had a lot of very encouraging and supportive mentors that helped to get me up to speed with onboarding on the team and I was able to quickly pick up research requests as needed after the first week! I struggled a bit in the beginning having to switch from the designer to a researcher mindset but I found it wasn’t too bad of a transition because I got to use a lot of the theory I was taught from both my Masters and Bachelors.
I also got much more confident in planning and facilitating research studies. After conducting a few, I was able to understand the general timeline of studies and learned how to effectively time manage running and fulfilling research requests. Moving forward, I want to explore additional ways to incorporate personalized feedback loops to further improve my own design process!
As this project is under an NDA, please contact me if you have any further questions!
Feel free to reach out through my email address, thanks for reading!
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