Buying power (Habito)

Habito

Habito is a digital mortgage broker, home-buying service and lender. Users complete a series of fact-find forms, before being paired with a mortgage expert, who assesses their needs and recommends them a mortgage.

Buying power

'Buying power' is a familiar concept in the mortgage industry, but each lender or broker refers to it and works it out slightly differently.

With Habito, users answer a few questions on their job, spending and savings. This gives the user a 'buying power score', which breaks down their current position as a buyer. The buying power tool then provides tips on what the user can do to improve that position. For example, by paying off their credit card in full at the end of every month to help strengthen their credit score.

The problem

From our research, we knew that buying power was something a lot of users looked into before applying for a mortgage. Our buying power tool already existed, but we weren't shouting about it. In order to find and use the buying power tool, users had to use the Habito website to get a mortgage in principle. This then unlocked the non-transactional-customer (NTC) dashboard, giving them access to a number of 'getting-ready tools', including buying power. There was no way to find the tool on any external search engine, and no way to access it through the Habito homepage. The journey felt frustrating, complicated and counterintuitive.

The solution

We wanted every user to be able to easily access the buying power tool, with one click, and without having to complete other tasks first. The solution was to build a landing page specifically for this tool. This would allow customers to find it from our homepage, or through a search engine with the help of SEO, not only vastly improving the user experience, but also allowing lots of new users to discover Habito.

I collaborated with researchers, product managers, designers and engineers to build the landing page, and the design was entirely content-led.

Considerations

There were a few important things to consider when designing the page:

• The user should be able to access the tool quickly and easily via a link at the top if they do not wish to read the content

• As 'buying power' is not a universal term, including some images of the tool could help aid understanding

• The user should be able to navigate away from the content straight to the tool with minimal scrolling as soon as they choose, via multiple links at different points on the page

• The focus should be on bite-sized content, breaking a complex subject down into easily digestible chunks

• There should be absolutely no jargon

• The experience should flow naturally, with the most relevant information at the top

• The user journey should not stop with the buying power landing page. If the user reads the content and decides not to try the tool, there should be links to other places to keep them interested and in the experience flow