Kubaan

Existing Issues.

1. Home owners do not have enough resources to find the best financial products.
They need to travel to request the mortgage loan from each bank in person. Moreover, they have to fill in the same information repeatedly with different banks. This process can take up to months before they can find the right one.

2. Loan agencies, do not have enough resources to find and serve customers.
This has caused them to lose potential customers.

3. The existing process of home mortgage is highly inefficient.
Home owners need to repeat the same process again manually, for all the banks they are considering getting a loan from.

Our Solution.

We offer innovative one-stop solution for home mortgage to, to save time and make matter matches between loan agencies and home owners.

Design Process.

Designing the application.

We interviewed with 5 different major banks and several investors in Thailand, asking what do they evaluate before approving each loan. Based on that, we created features in Kubaan to categorize the information they need.

Information Architecture

Here is the high-level information architecture of KuBann's application. We have three main components including

1. Main web page
   This component will work as a point of contact with users. Users can sign in / sign up or check information of KuBaan here.
2. Homeowner Application
   Homeowner application will be a main component that interacts with home owner clients. Home owners can manage their accounts and loan applications.
3. Bank Application
   Bank application will a main interaction with bankers. Bankers can manage their accounts, check submitted loan applications, and submit the approval decisions for each loan application here.

1. KuBaan's Web Design

I decided to start this project by design and implement the website first because it will be the main point of contact for both homeowners and banks. The first step of website design is to thoroughly understand the purpose of the website and how it can help incorporate meaningful content to the customers. Here are the major goals of Kubaan's website.

• Business Goal: To attract and increase home owner sign up rates
• Branding Goal: To communicate the company's core ideas and missions
• Usability Goal: To easily inform audience about the loan mortgage match making process
• Design Goal: Informative, clear, logical, formal/professional, trustworthy

User Research

I conducted the user testing with 7 participants (4 home owners and 3 bankers) using card sorting and dendograms to have a better understanding of information and contents hierarchy for KuBaan's website. So, this website can be more intuitive, user-friendly, and best serve customers.

Web Information Architecture & Components

I designed Kubaan's webpage to be a single page application (SPA). Based on the data from user research, the information of the website should be categorized into 5 main categories which included features, process, about us, plans, and contact us. Then, I organized the categories in to sequential order of what, how, and why can KuBaan help home owners.

Web Implementation.

The final process of this project was to implement and deploy Kubaan's website. I developed the website based on the IA diagram by using HTML, CSS, and Javascript. I used webpack to bundle react components of home owner and bank application and linked them with Kubaan's homepage. Then, I deployed the website through AWS.

2. Home Owner Application.

User Flow.

For the complex application like a mortgage platform that requires numerous information from users, we have to carefully design and organize the features and behavior flow that are intuitive and be able to provide the sense of trustworthy to gain users' trust. Based on the brainstorming session and the data from the major banks, here are the lists of requirement features for homeowners applications.

Application process.

We discussed with 5 different major banks in Thailand to find out what do they evaluate when considering giving a loan. Based on that, we sorted and categorized all the required and useful information into borrower’s application. From the conversation we had, we found out that if they provide additional information, such as salary slips, real estate purchase, and sale agreement, the amount of loan they can get will increase by up to 30%. Thus, in order to help home owners get more loans, we will let them know that they are encouraged, but not obligated to provide the information listed above.

Home Owner Application.

Interaction Design.

Final Deliverable

I implemented KuBaan's website and user application feature using react.js before handing it off to the user research for user testings.