KreditKassan is the Swedish oldest student loan foundation, based in Lund at the South Sweden. It’s a non-profit organization run by students and gives loans to students from local universities.
The initial idea was to vectorize and fine tune the already existing handmade logo. Moreover I did a research, that its result presented in the form of an evaluation/suggestion for the company’s website, it's appearance and it’s overall feeling and usability.
note: The client didn't implement all the suggested design proposals regarding the redesign of their website.
Nevertheless, from the research I ended up in creating some basic Persona that helped me to further develop the designs.
The design proposals based in two concepts/ideas. First was to avoid the text-only landing page and second to introduce at the very first page the products, the loans in that case.
Moreover, I redesigned the Loan Calculator that the site offers.
The pain points of the previous design:
1) Too much to read (time, effort)
2) No info of what the actual products are
Research
1) Competitors’ Research, in which I checked the landing pages and the presentation of the products from other companies in the same sector or in similar sectors (banks etc.).
2) Unmoderated Interviews with the organization members, from which I defined the Target Group and hence the primary Persona.
3) Unmoderated Interviews with students that have similar characteristics with the already defined Persona.
After landing at the front page, the user has to read all that historical and business info, something that is not tempting whatsoever because it needs time and effort for something that has no value, yet, for the customer and that is why one should avoid it. They didn't provide any details of what their offer in a way that make sense for the user. I am not saying that the details about who you are, are not important or relevant. I am saying that at the very beginning of your introduction with your potential client you must be very specific, based on what they want to see.
More specifically, when the user is searching from which company she/he will buy a product or a service, she wants to see in a fast manner useful and basic information, in other words, an overview of the available products and then later, if she is satisfied enough of this first glance, she will probably search for more details about who you are, like how many years you are on the business etc.
Old Website:
After all, Kreditkassan has to offer two types of loans, so also context-wise it makes sense to introduce their products first in their main page in the form of two dominant Call to Action buttons.
Design Decisions:
1) The two loan-products will be placed at the very beginning with “call to action” buttons 2) Only basic info will presented about the company. For extra there is a “read more” button
3) Logotypes of the universities will be placed as an extra proof of credibility
Mock Up:
Redesigning The Loan Calculator
In their initial landing page they have a Loan Calculator. Obviously that is something important for them so I decided to keep it to the new design but I had to make it from the scratch.
As you can see at the pictures below, at the loan calculator there are two drop down list menus that they seem not to work in this case. The reason for that is that after clicking at the first menu, in order to select your desired loan, you can see the overwhelming and awkwardly long list that pops up!
Old Calculator:
The design solution that I suggested, is inspired from the mobile apps. It is a simple Slider Controller that allows you to easily and conveniently, regarding space, make your chooses between loans.
I kept the two steps idea. First you choose the Loan Amount and then the Desired Monthly Payment. At the end you click the Calculate button in order to see the results.
New Design:
Lastly and having in mind all the above mentioned I designed this landing page. Moreover, the Design Qualities I wanted the page to have are the sense of reliability and security. Trying to address this, I added the logos of the Universities that Kreditkassan works with in an attempt to give the sense of familiarity and hence reliability.
Final Design:
