The Problem
Deko’s Pay monthly product is outdated, lenghty and difficult to integrate due to the business having to support multiple lenders with limited constraints.
The Challenge
Optimise the Pay monthly product in order to increase lender volume, revenue in order to attract new retailers.
Design and launch the Newpay solution in collaboration with Newday a large lender that invested in Deko to increase retail transactions and introduce more retailers.
My Role
I led the design effort across both product launches. Collaborating across all products, working with other designers product managers, stakeholders, tech teams and marketing to inform strategy and research and design the best possible solutions. I also built out a design system and introduced research to help scale and solve problems across our products.
Deko customers
Pay monthly
Pay monthly is a financial product that enables consumers to purchase small to large items by taking out a loan from a matching lender. Consumers must go through a credit check and if successful Deko will match them with a suitable lender. At the time we had 1 key lender (Omni) and other white labelled lenders like (klarna)
Features
Pay in monthly instalments
6-36 month terms
0%-21.9% interest depending on the lender
£300-£25k basket value
Establishing research
Deko is a technology driven company so we needed to bring out the customer voice and the value of the product function. I started by explaining the importance of research to the wider business.
Since establishing ongoing research we also managed to introduce rituals such as playback sessions to the whole company (with 80% attendance) and sending out video recordings for people to see first hand which helped.
Pay monthly consumers
Pay monthly version 2
We started with small iterations. Changing the font to match the new branding and improving the document signing. This was also when we got a second lender which would upsell if the customer was declined with the first lender.
The design system
Deko had rebranded before I joined but the assets were marketing focused. I took the base style and started to develop an accessible, scalable set of components to use across Deko’s digital products for desktop and mobile. After hiring an additional designer we collaborated and evolved the library.
Pay monthly version 3 and 4
After further testing we evolved the journeys further.
Version 3 we upgraded the branding again to cement Deko as an introductory brand. Also Improving the term selection pre checkout due to confusion.
Version 4 We refreshed the entire UI to make it consisent with other products and split the form out into sections because users complained it was too long
Newpay
Deko’s second product was a revolving credit offering. We partnered with Newday, Deko’s sister company that is also a lender and the biggest issuer of cards in the UK. This journey was designed and built by Deko but signed off by NewDay’s risk, compliance, legal and marketing teams. We worked closely with NewDay’s product, design, brand and tech teams
Features
Split your purchase flexibly to suit you
Pay monthly from 6-36 months
Credit limit up to £2,500
Check your balance and repeat spend
Newpay Version 1
The first iteration was built off an existing proposition that Newday had used on a previous product so there was little room for innovation in the user experience of the form itself.
However, we did introduce ‘will I qualify’ which allowed users to do a quick credit check before applying for finance. It was introduced on product pages and carried over to checkout.
Our hypothesised risks for this version..
Lengthy form
poor interest offering
Unclear propisition compared to competitors
Research feedback
As the product got ready for beta we tested different prototypes to validate our concerns. we found the 2 biggest risks with the offering were in fact..
Flexible credit option unnoticed and not mentioned in marketing
APR/PA understanding is unclear. Some customers were not familiar with the differences
The rebrand
Amongst the concerns of the product offering Newday decided to rebrand the proposition. We had to implement the new branding into the journey and I pushed for the changes we had seen in the research. It was tricky and the launch was looming.
