Personas�for Design & Dev

By Grace Uecker

2024

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Confidential and proprietary - Stavvy, Inc. 2023

Table of Contents

1. What Are Personas?
2. The Process and Method
3. Lender/Originator
4. Title & Settlement
5. Notary
6. Servicer
7. Borrower/Signer

Introduction

What are Personas?

What is a persona?

Why are they important?

How can they help us?

A Persona is a fictional, yet realistic, description of a typical or target user of a product. They are used to personify the people who actually use our product, so that we can better understand who we are designing for.

Personas promote empathy, increase awareness and memorability of target users, and inform design decisions. They help us to build a product that actually solves the problems we’re looking to solve by keeping the actual users at the forefront.

Being able to visualize who exactly our product is for motivates us. It shows us who we are actually solving problems for, which makes our product and the work we do impactful.

These personas in particular are geared towards the design and engineering teams, and are meant to connect the people that use our product to the ones are actually making it.

The Process and Method

Finalize & Review

Discuss

Survey & Define

Research & Organize

Prep & Interview

The UXR team met with a product manager to discuss the workflow of a mortgage application and where Stavvy fits into it all.

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After this discussion and a bit of research into our current product and the industry, I decided upon the 5 personas I was going to create - Lender, Title & Settlement, Notary, Servicer, & Borrower - and defined their key responsibilities.

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Engineers and designers filled out a survey to give us more insight into their current understanding of our users, and what information about our users they would find most useful. Using the perspective gained from the survey along with existing Stavvy resources, I crafted a list of guiding questions to answer through research and a persona template to illustrate my conclusions.

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I sourced, surveyed, and selected 3-5 real life participants for 3 out of 5 of the personas and conducted 30 minute moderated interviews with each person using the discussion guide. Due to a lack of accurate participant data for the Title & Settlement and Servicer personas, I decided to adjust our research strategy to rely on Stavvy and outside resources for those personas to ensure the validity and reliability of our findings.

With the analyzed results from the interviews, information collected via Stavvy resources and the web, and insights from recent customer calls, I used the templates to demonstrate my findings.

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Lender/Originator

Leonard the Lender

This persona represents the positions who help organize, process, approve and generate a loan package. They handle the first steps of the mortgage process and are in charge of gathering all the tedious financial information and processing the loan to send it off to Title and Settlement.

Key Takeaways

1. Organization and timeliness are the most important values to the Lender.
• With tight deadlines and so many documents to gather and sort, making this system readable and intuitive is the biggest priority.
2. Having clear instructions on doc requirements and laid out reasons for bits of information for the Borrower can help reduce wasted time.
• Disorganization of financial information on the Borrower’s end is out of reach, but time spent explaining documents can be reduced with a clearer system.

Pain points

• Work with hundreds of documents for each application → keeping all the various documents secure and organized can be difficult.
• Have to gather all the financial information from clients and assemble the application on very tight deadlines → Borrower pushback (whether it be skepticism over why a document is necessary or their poor organization) or slow communication can make this stressful.

Tool preferences

• Most important is a sorted file system that allows them to categorize and arrange documents as needed- making this interface scannable with an easily understandable hierarchy of information without the stress of the copious documents is essential.
• Lenders work with lots of different people in the process - the Borrower, other loan processors, loan assistants, loan officers, underwriters, title and settlement - so it’s crucial that this line of communication is quick and easy.

Title & Settlement

Tracy & Stacy from T&S

This persona represents both Title and Settlement agents, often grouped together for their similar responsibilities. Both are in charge of managing documents and orders and communicating with Lenders. However Title agents are responsible for insuring the property, while Settlement agents are responsible for handling the accounting of the transaction and executing the finalizing documents.

Key Takeaways

1. Collaboration and efficiency are the most important values to Title and Settlement.
• Similar to the Lender, staying up to date on all things surrounding the mortgage is important to close the loan on time and give the Borrower a good experience.
2. Clear and concise ways to view orders and transactions and receive updates
• Prevents frustration and encourages better relationships with the related Lender and Notary.

Pain points

• Closing platforms often don’t prioritize the responsibilities of T&S agents and focus more on other personas despite their unique role → build a platform that accounts for the needs they have and brings them into the process.
• T&S agents are pressured for time → prioritize visibility in file and order activity, and create a system of relevant event notifications to keep T&S agents in the loop.

Tool preferences

• Having an easily accessible and navigable way of uploading and organizing documents into correct orders is important for T&S agents.
• Receiving notifications when other personas take action on files and orders is not only essential to T&S agents keeping their to-do list on track with the closing date timeline, but also to the to-do lists of other personas involved in moving the application along.

Notary

Norm the Notary

This persona is the one notarizing the signing of documents, essentially facilitating as a witness in signing meetings with the borrower and other personas. They are responsible for verifying the identity of the signer and finalizing the document with their certified notary stamp.

Key Takeaways

1. Security and legality are the most important values to the Notary.
• Notaries are concerned about their own safety- we want to protect them as a witness.
2. Without any technical issues, RONs are more convenient and provide greater flexibility than in-person notarizations.
• Ensuring notaries can provide the same customer service and security as in-person notarizations makes RON the optimal choice.

Pain points

• Have to know what documents they can and cannot notarize with their particular state certification → concerned about the contents of the document and who exactly is signing.
• Must check and validate the identity of the signer to ensure that they are who they say they are, and that they’re signing of their own free will → rely on KBA, ID verification, and their own judgement to conduct a well-rounded assessment of the signer’s identity.

Tool preferences

• Most important is the security software used to do ID verification and KBA. Having an intuitive authentication process that has the right level of difficulty without being too tedious is essential to a smooth notarization.
• Need a way to schedule - and reschedule in case of KBA failure - RON meetings, communicate with various parties, and organize documents, preferably all in one place.

Servicer

Sal the Servicer

This persona’s responsibilities come later down the line in loan processing, and include taking care of or “servicing” the loan and the duties that come with that. Servicers are the ones conducting loss mitigation, or the process by which they help reduce or “mitigate” the loss to the loan owner and prevent foreclosure in the case that the borrower is struggling to make their loan payments.

Key Takeaways

1. Customer service & communication are the most important values to the Servicer.
• The Borrower depends on the Servicer through loss mitigation. Getting in touch with the Borrower as fast as possible is essential for the health of their loan.
2. Most of what Servicers do is check up and collect on performing loans.
• Allowing for customizable workflows that let Servicers conduct their own process is important.

Pain points

• The Borrowers that Servicers work with are stressed about their financial situation and the status of their mortgage → must provide cautious and timely customer service to prevent further frustration and ultimately foreclosure.
• Servicers are on a time crunch to contact the Borrower and get a package executed or else paperwork has to be changed → need a smooth workflow that allows them to perform their process.

Tool preferences

• Communication with the Borrower is the top priority as customer service is a large part of their role. We need to ensure that contact information, as well as package information, is surfaced and available, and that communication can flow both ways.
• The actions the Servicer performs is very similar to a closing- it’s important to make these actions as fluid as possible to allow Servicers to focus on their loss mitigation strategy.

Borrower/Signer

Barb the Borrower

This persona is buying or selling a house, or involved in loss mitigation. The borrower is the one getting the loan, accessing documents, retrieving information for their application, and finalizing the property purchase.

Key Takeaways

1. Trust and transparency are the most important values to the borrower.
• They want to be confident in their purchase, and know their information and finances are in the right hands.
2. Detailed requirements and timely updates pertaining to the application status provide them with a desired sense of security.
• They want to know what to expect and what role they play throughout the process.

Pain points

• Most borrowers lack experience and knowledge about mortgage applications and home-buying process and are unsure what to expect → makes borrowers intimidated and stressed.
• Required to fill out lots of tedious financial information that is often difficult to find and organize → concerns about privacy and frustration locating documents.

Tool preferences

• Email and phone are familiar and the preferred way of communication for status updates, quick questions, and other more conversational exchanges.
• Deadlines, document requirements, and file submissions on the other hand are difficult to keep track of in email threads - borrowers would prefer a more succinct and readable way to stay updated on details like application status and their actionable items.

Thank you

Confidential and proprietary - Stavvy, Inc. 2023