CASE STUDY 01 / CLEARSCORE
Ratings & Reviews
ClearScore offers a range of financial products, such as credit cards, loans and mortgages. Each product provider has a customer rating. There were several problems with the way the ratings were collected and displayed, so we redesigned the entire rating flow.
Competencies
User Research, UX, UI,
Interaction Design
Motion Design
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Role
Senior Product Designer
User Problem
Research found that users were seeking more assistance when determining which financial product (such as credit card) best meets their needs. Ratings and customer reviews were particularly important factors for users. Our ratings were no longer being gathered, which resulted in them becoming outdated and unhelpful for users.
Solution
An elegant new experience designed for users to seamlessly rate and review financial products connected to their credit report, ensuring that the insights gathered are both relevant and helpful to others considering which product is best for them.
Results
I left ClearScore shortly after this was implemented. However, I have seen that this design is still used to this day, and ratings and reviews have been successfully gathered.
User Interviews
In order to understand better why ratings are so important to people and what people wanted from a rating and review system, we started conducting user research. We conducted interviews (remote due to covid, on usertesting.com). We also carried out competitor research to spot new opportunities.
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Findings
​After the user interviews, we used an infinity map (shown below) to group the findings into key themes. We found that ratings and reviews were key for guiding users’ decision making.
A written review was important to back up the rating score. For example, if a rating score was low, people wanted to know what exactly was disappointing about it.
Customer support was an area that was particularly important to people when considering what bank/provider to choose (and this increased when the pandemic started). Other areas of importance were online banking platforms that people use to manage their account (such as the banking app / website) and the application process.
Scope for MVP
Once we’d grouped the findings, we started to look at what we’d be able to achieve for the MVP. Although written reviews were important to users, we were unable to build this for the first iteration (due to tech restraints). However we wanted users to be able to explain the rating score they’d given, as we knew this was important to users. Therefore, we decided to provide pre-defined reasons that users could select to back up their rating. We user tested this to ensure we’d covered the most common answers from users. 


From there, we started to map out how we would structure the rating collection in order to gather the most valuable information for users. We also worked out at what point in the user journey we would ask for the rating. For example, we only wanted to ask users to rate areas such as the provider’s customer service and online banking app after a minimum of 3 months of users taking out the product. This allowed for users to experience these services properly and therefore, make the rating more relevant.
Solution
​​We split the design work into the rating gathering flow and the rating display. I worked on the rating gathering flow.
The rating gathering flow was triggered in the users notification centre after 3 months of owning a product.
It consisted of five steps. We aimed to keep it concise to encourage users to finish it, while also ensuring we collected valuable information to assist other users in making informed product choices.
5 Simple Steps
1. Overall rating for the product
2. Rating for provider’s online and mobile banking
3. Reason for the rating
4. Rating for provider’s customer service
5. Reason for the rating
Use of Motion Design
I believe motion design
is important to create a more intuitive and engaging experience. I added subtle movements to give feedback, for example when users rate with a thumbs up or down.
Additionally, I ensured that transitions between steps are smooth, so the process feels quick and engaging rather than lengthy and dull.
Colours​​​
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We introduced colour to represent positive and negative sentiments. Instead of using red for negativity, which felt too alarming, we opted for a more subtle approach, using a dark blue.
We introduced a fresh new green to signify positive feedback.
