Disrupting the Market

Overview

Fannie Mae is a key player in the secondary mortgage market, purchasing loans from lenders. When lenders sell their loans to Fannie Mae, they also in some cases, need to sell their servicing rights (co-issue). In order to increase the likelihood that lenders sell to Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae needed to make it easier for lenders to sell servicing rights when selling loans to Fannie Mae.

Fannie Mae partnered with EPAM to create a co-issue experience that provides sellers greater access to servicers and efficiency in doing co-issue sales with Fannie Mae.

Project Needs:
User Experience Design

Role:
Customer Experience Lead

Activities:

User Research
Personas
Journey maps
Service blueprint
Customer Experience Strategy
Information Architecture
Wireframes
Taxonomy

The Challenge

In order to effectively create co-issue solutions, servicers have to participate in the new model. Many large servicers had already created a successful business and didn't want to be directly compared with smaller servicers on a platform, potentially making them lose some of their competitive edge they'd built over time. To make the marketplace successful we needed larger servicers on board, thus we needed to create value for servicers that outweighed any negative affects of a marketplace concept.

The Approach

Understand the Industry

We first needed to understand what co-issue was. We needed to determine the high-level process in order to guide the discussion to get the information we needed to understand key issues users faced.

Understand the Process

We held journey mapping / service blue-printing sessions to understand the current process of co-issue loans and pros and cons of the current process.

Understand the Customers

There were several types of servicers and several customers within each part of the process. It was important to understand each of their motivations, needs and issues to help shape the new solution.

Understanding Customers

In order to better understand the customers (sellers and servicers) within this space, I conducted observational research and workshops with the help of the team. I led collaborative analysis where we uncovered needs, issues, and motivations in the context of the overall co-issue process.

Creating Personas

Based on information gathered, we created personas that represented the various customer types.

Envisioning the Future

Based on the needs of both the business and customers, I led the creation of a new product vision that helped alleviate many of the pain points that existed across the journey. We prioritized features and helped define MVP based on impact and LOE.

Developing the Future Journey

Based on the recommendations, we worked collaboratively with the client to envision how the journey might look in the future if we implemented our recommendations.

Digital User Experience Design

Getting the Structure Right

I created an application feature diagram/map to demonstrate the recommended features within each section of the product and how we would approach creating them within each sprint. During sprint planning based on LOE; however, we readjusted as needed.
Task flow diagrams were instrumental in understanding what inputs needed to be available and how information flowed through the system

Ideation

I led the creation of a prototype to express the complex functionality for each feature within the product. The team also used the prototype to test concepts with users to better understand where we needed to make changes to our concepts

Testing Our Ideas

I setup and conducted several iterations of in-person usability testing on each concept. Using information gleaned from the usability testing, we were able to quickly identify and correct many issues before build. I also set up a feedback loop to allow for continuous testing and iterative design after launch.

Visual Design

As we created the prototype we also developed and applied a new design system. We made updates to the prototype as we began to better define the various design elements.