OnDeck Project Firefly

OnDeck partnered with Chase to provide a game-changing loan experience for small businesses.

My role: Lead UX Designer

Opportunity

Getting a small business loan from Chase used to be slow and full of paperwork—even for existing customers. The process was frustrating for business owners and inefficient for the bank.

We set out to change that by pre-approving customers and letting them select their loan amount and terms online.

With our new approach:

No lengthy application process
Better rates for customers
Larger, lower-risk customer base for OnDeck

During development we had to keep Chase’s name strictly confidential, so the project was given a codename, “Firefly”.

Comparing the loan process

The diagram below shows how the Firefly process compares to the original Chase and OnDeck processes.

This diagram was made early in the process to clarify the overall process for team members and stakeholders . It also nicely illustrated how much faster and simpler the Firefly process would be.

Process

I started by working with Product and Business Development to clarify requirements and align on goals. Once we had a clear direction, we started with a low-fidelity, responsive prototype. We were able to iterate rapidly by:

Getting feedback from small business owners on UserTesting.com at night
Reviewing the results the next morning
Implementing changes in the afternoon
Testing again at night

This process helped us refine the experience and make sure it was intuitive.

After we got approval from Chase on the prototype, Engineering began building out the core functionality. I worked closely with them to make sure the experience was matching the prototype.

In parallel, I collaborated with a visual designer to finalize the look and feel. Chase had strict visual design guidelines, so we had a dedicated visual designer handle the design and approval process. Once the visual designs were approved, Engineering finished development.

I really enjoyed collaborating on this project with the visual designers, engineers, product, and business development people. This was a project where all the different teams really contributed their unique talents to make an awesome product with an awesome experience.

Results

We started with a small pilot launch which was hugely successful. One customer completed loan checkout in 3 minutes on their phone. This was unheard of for the loan industry!