California Dream For All Shared Appreciation Loan
The project has sparked interest from many 1st-time homebuyers, but limited funds and time mean agents/brokers/lenders want to help clients/prospects learn about and apply for it quickly.
So, how might we help agents/brokers/lenders more effectively educate their clients/prospects about the CalHFA project, and generate interest in applying for it?
Introducation
California Dream For All Shared Appreciation Loan is a down payment assistance program specifically designed for first-time homebuyers. Its lower interest rates and limited quota have generated significant interest among prospective homebuyers..
The goal of this program is to create a better experience for interested buyers of this program, helping them determine if they qualify for the Dream For All Shared Appreciation Loan Program and understand how much loan they can apply for and their repayment plan in the future.
Role: Visual Design, Prototype, UI Design
Tool: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Figma, Webflow
Duration: 1 week
PROBLEMS
Through interviews with real estate agents, our team discovered that the California Dream For All Shared Appreciation Loan had attracted many interested homebuyers. However, due to a lack of familiarity with the loan program, they are unsure about their eligibility and the amount of loan they can apply for. With the sudden increase in business, agents struggle to promptly address each applicant's inquiries, resulting in a significant drop in productivity and potential loss of clients.
USER FLOW
For users, their main needs are to know whether they meet the application conditions and loan information. Therefore, the overall experience of the page can be simply summarized as the process of collecting information and giving feedback. We first classify the necessary information for users to query loans into "Information we need to collect from users" and "Information we need to provide to users". Under such two categories, we sort out different types of information and summarize them into four points:
We identified and redefined the user flow according to the above information.
My goal is to mainly target the process of homebuyers, helping them determine whether they meet the application requirements for the loan program, ensuring they understand the loan approval process, as well as the post-loan plans and benefits available to them based on their individual circumstances.
PROTOTYPE | LOW-FI
Based on the user flow, I made some low-fidelity prototypes with basic content and layout to test usability within groups first. A very important point is that we hope that users will not have a heavy sense of task when browsing the webpage and inputting information, while ensuring the integrity of the function.
PROTOTYPE | HI-FI
The “Your Info” is the first functional section borrower can view on the CalHFA Calculator page. Users should first know if they are eligible to apply for the program.
Rather than collecting all personal information before providing results, I have opted for an interactive mode that offers immediate feedback. This allows users to instantly determine their eligibility for the program while understanding the application requirements.
Also, to minimize applicant discouragement and ensure efficient customer retention, we provide users with alternative product options to enhance their experience when they DO NOT meet the application requirements.
The user is qualified for one application condition > Next Step
The user is qualified for all application conditions > Apply Now
The user is NOT qualified for either application condition > Check More Products
The highlighted Loan Amount and Interest Payment are the most crucial information users care about. The visualized Breakdown part helps the user understand more about their loan details.
In this section, we have designed a more friendly mode to collect user information - making plans in the first person, so as to reduce the user's sense of burden when doing surveys.
