ROLE
Head of Design
DISCIPLINE
Product strategy & design leadership
01. THE CHALLENGE
Simplifying the mortgage journey without compromising compliance
Molo set out to make buy-to-let mortgages faster and easier through a fully digital platform. However, the application journey involved complex lending criteria, identity checks, property valuations and regulatory requirements, adding friction to the process.
The challenge was to make the experience clearer and more intuitive while meeting regulatory obligations, improving conversion and delivering at pace to support the ambitions of a rapidly growing business.
Building customer confidence
Customers were accustomed to lengthy mortgage processes, so Molo's speed could feel unfamiliar. The experience needed to provide reassurance, set expectations and help them feel confident at every stage.
Balancing simplicity and compliance
The journey needed to accommodate complex lending criteria and regulatory requirements without overwhelming customers or creating unnecessary barriers.
Prioritising & delivering at pace
As a growing fintech, Molo needed to move quickly, balancing rapid product development with design quality, customer needs and evolving business priorities.
02. MY APPROACH
Building collaboration and consistency across teams
I worked closely with the business, engineering, product owners and customer services to understand challenges, share insights and shape the mortgage experience. Customer services were particularly valuable, bringing first-hand knowledge of customer questions, frustrations and expectations into the design process.
Alongside this, I focused on establishing a consistent approach to design and collaboration, creating shared ways of working that helped the team make better decisions, maintain quality and deliver at pace.
Using insights to optimise conversion
I used Hotjar daily to analyse funnel drop-off, develop hypotheses and design experiments to improve conversion. I combined behavioural data with customer research and targeted polls to understand friction at key points in the journey.
Creating a consistent design approach
I established shared design patterns and ways of working, taking time to understand what engineers needed from design to support implementation and improve efficiency. Together, we developed a design system based on atomic design principles.
Pragmatic design decisions
I took a pragmatic approach to design, recognising when a solution was good enough to move forward and when there was scope to refine it further. This helped maintain momentum without losing sight of the quality of the experience.
03. THE OUTCOME
189%
Increase in Decision in Principle approvals
60%
Reduction in mortgage landing-page bounce rate
61%
Improvement in customer expectation alignment
04. FULL CASE STUDY
Behind the experience
Password available on request.
