Prospa App Uplift
Timeline
Oct 2022 - Present
Role
Product Design
Tools
Figma, FigJam
Company
Prospa
A holistic app improvement initiative
Prospa aims to become the #1 lending and business partner for small business owners, offering an excellent user experience to drive trust and engagement.
This app uplift project focused on improving core areas like IA, login, product discoverability, and activation flows to create a seamless and scalable experience.
• Low app rating (3.8) and stagnant monthly active users (5k), signaling declining user satisfaction and engagement.
• Outdated and overly large visual elements, making the interface feel cluttered and disconnected.
• Complex and empty navigation, leading to missed opportunities for cross-selling and reduced user engagement.
• Lack of activation flows and clear hierarchies in messaging, making it difficult to target users effectively and deliver useful, timely notifications.
Aligning the feature with our company’s core values was crucial to persuading stakeholders and driving impactful decisions.
I ensured the design goals were closely aligned with Prospa's key business metrics to drive meaningful outcomes.
Aligning design with business goals and customer needs
To ensure our design decisions were data-driven, I framed our efforts around hypotheses, guiding our iterative design process.
This approach ensured that each design decision was tied to a specific outcome, allowing us to track success through clear metrics.
Phased approach to driving continuous impact
By implementing quick wins alongside fundamental IA improvements, we adopted a phased approach that blended immediate enhancements with long-term scalability.
This strategy not only improved user experience but also drove measurable gains in satisfaction, engagement, and business outcomes, ensuring sustained progress.
Establishing a unified foundational IA
Conducted team-wide card sorting exercises to collaboratively explore IA ideas and categorise potential navigation structures.
This activity revealed recurring patterns and helped align the team on foundational IA principles.
Phasing IA planning for scalable design
Organised features into phases to map their impact on IA and align design strategies. This ensures a scalable structure, minimizes rework, and provides a clear roadmap for feature rollouts.
Structuring navigation for growth
Developed phased recommendations for navigation structure to ensure adaptability and alignment with future features. Removed elements, like "Cards," that were inconsistent with multi-product goals in Phase 1, while proposing scalable navigation options for subsequent phases.
This ensures a seamless evolution of the IA alongside business growth.
Benchmarking financial industry products
• Explored financial and non-financial products to categorise home screen layouts into patterns.
• Identified trends such as product-centric vs. user-centric designs, which influenced our approach.
Rapidly generating team-aligned ideas
Facilitated Crazy 8 sessions with stakeholders, including PMs, marketing, and designers, to rapidly generate ideas and establish a shared understanding of key challenges.
Quickly visualising use cases with data-driven insights
Developed quick lo-fi wireframes to visualise all use cases, using data to identify customer volumes for each scenario. This allowed for informed decision-making and highlighted potential gaps in coverage.
Refining wireframes for validation
Designed over 33 home screen use cases, defining layout, key strategies, and messaging in collaboration with the marketing team. This process also highlighted edge scenarios.
Prototyping for user testing
Led user testing sessions, interviewing 2 internal stakeholders and 4 small business owners to validate the initial concept and understand how they engage with financial products.
Validating concept and usability through user testing
Led user testing sessions, interviewing 2 internal stakeholders and 4 small business owners.
Conducted 30-minute user interviews to explore how small business owners utilise their loan management apps, followed by 30-minute user testing sessions to validate the new IA concept and cash flow management experience.
Extracting key insights
Analysed findings and deriving actionable insights to create a research report for stakeholders.
All 6 participants successfully understood the purpose of the home screen
"This layout makes it easier to find information. I think this is pretty good as a dashboard."
Personalised offers relevant to SMEs' financial situations are desirable
Recommendation: Enhance cross-selling by delivering personalised, timely, and relevant offers that align with SMEs' financial situations, avoiding overly obvious sales tactics.
The updated navigation performed well in testing but requires minor usability enhancements
Recommendation: Add a prominent indicator on the card image to clearly signify it's tappable.
Setting the north star for visual excellence
With a validated visual design and usability foundation, we established a clear north star and a long-term vision for the app’s evolution.
This uplift is not a one-off change but a foundational step, enabling us to implement the new elements, style, and navigation incrementally for sustainable and cohesive growth.
Transforming the Login Experience
I led the creative direction for a complete overhaul of the static login page, transforming it into a dynamic and user-friendly experience.
By introducing engaging video elements, designing a streamlined calculator flow, and highlighting clear customer value propositions (CVPs), we uplifted our brand and created a new digital entry point for prospective customers to explore our products.
This redesign turned the login journey into a functional and impactful touchpoint, enhancing both usability and brand presence.
Simplifying payment access and flow
I redesigned the payment entry points by introducing a dedicated button in the bottom navigation, streamlining access across multiple products, including business accounts and lines of credit.
In addition to the improved entry point, I designed a simplified payment flow to enhance user experience. I also conducted usability testing (UT) to validate the design, ensuring the process was intuitive and efficient for users.
Streamlining Business Account activation
I developed a new activation flow to guide customers in adding funds post-signup, addressing a key metric. Through comprehensive discovery and journey analysis, I transformed the user experience with dynamic visuals, animations, and illustrations.
The design incorporated engaging visuals, animations, and simplified the fund addition process, allowing customers to easily add funds from their line of credit with just a few taps.
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Driving impactful results through Prospa App uplift
Over the course of 2 years, I’ve played a central role in leading the Prospa App uplift, eventually expanding my influence to oversee the web product as well. My work directly contributed to measurable improvements, including:
• Increased app rating from 3.8 to 4.8 on Apple App Store, 4.3 on Google Play Store.
• Boosted monthly active users by 60%, from 5K to 8K.
• Achieved a 13% growth in funded Business Accounts (BA) within the first 3 months of the redesign.
• Revitalised the app’s visual and functional elements, enhancing user engagement and experience.
Embracing collaboration for better solutions
Learned the importance of stepping back when a concept isn't working and initiating collaborative workshops.
By engaging the team to share diverse perspectives, I facilitated quicker, more effective problem-solving and fostered stronger alignment on design decisions.
Adopting a data-informed design approach
Learned to integrate metrics into the design process, setting hypotheses to track key performance indicators.
This approach allowed me to validate design decisions, refine solutions, and enhance user engagement based on real data.
