ARKOUNTING
Project Type: Mobile Design / Responsive Web Design
Roles: Product Designer
Industry: Finance Services
Designing sustainable financial tools for businesses and a better economy.
Overview
Arkounting is a technology-based professional services firm that provides technology solutions, outsourced financial management, management consulting and training services to start-ups, micro, small and medium scale enterprises. In my capacity as the main UI/UX designer at Arkounting, I worked on designing features for the investment and loan product Lenda, which caters to 13,000+ customers.
The Challenge
Lenda (Now Lendastack) is one of Arkounting's forefront financial products. It is an application that allows users to manage lending and existing investments. As an application relating to important financial data, information within the application had to be managed in a way that would be easy for the users to understand and track their finances.
My work at Arkounting started off with a redesign of the mobile application of the Lenda product. Now, Lenda as a finance management product exists on both web and mobile. Worked with both mobile and web developers to bring the improvements and new additions in the product to life.
Designing for Mobile
As the finance management products (i.e. loans and investments) already existed, I maintained a part of their previous processes and user flows.
However, for the Lenda mobile app, the onboarding had to be changed to make signing up and logging in as smooth as possible. Prior to designing this login process, logging in took about 3 minutes. But with the user flow I reworked based on insights, the time was cut down to about 45 seconds for the average user.
The solution around a faster and easier login was to pull up existing accounts linked to a user, based on the email address they provide during account creation. The user can select the account or lender linked to their email address, and they are directed to their dashboard.
Whilst in the application, the user can track their loans and investments, as well as make repayments or get top ups on their loans.
Marketing Website
I was required to redesign a new landing page for Lenda as well. The main aim of the redesign was to retain as much of the old information on the site, while bringing a new look. I opted for a minimalistic approach, and utilised the Lenda colours which are orange and purple. The pages redesigned were the homepage, products page, about us and support/frequently asked questions.
Web Application
The web application section for the Lenda product is home to the services provided by the product. This web application allows both the users and administrators to review the state of financial services. Such that users can apply for loans and loans can be reviewed by administrators. Based on the information provided by the users, loans can either be approved or declined.
The web dashboard provides information regarding the state of every user’s financial activities. They simply have to login using their credentials and can begin transacting without hassles.
For administrators, they can create workflows for loan approvals, accepting payments, initiating savings/investments, generating statements, reporting management and collecting default loans.
Some of the actions the users are able to carry out in the web dashboard include:
- Loan application: Users can provide information regarding a new loan application within the mobile app, or manage their application in the web dashboard.
- Loan repayment: Information about existing loans, their tenure and payment history can be accessed in the web dashboard. Users can make a loan repayment or request for loan top-up if eligible.
- Assets management: Tangible and intangible assets can be created under the assets section, which allows users to classify their assets type and know depreciation information.
- See push notifications: New information about product updates are shared through push notifications so that users are up-to-date with all product changes.
General web features I designed include:
- Payment integrations: Integration keys allows other companies to utilize Lenda as a service. The integration I designed allows for activation of keys from Paystack, Okra, Remita, First Central and Credit Registry.
- BVN validation: For every user account existing in Lenda database, a BVN validation can be carried out to check if their records are accurate.
- Deposit accounts: Users can create deposit accounts for their finances on the web dashboard. They can select the product type and duration of the deposit plan.
Design System
Finally, prior to working at Arkounting, there was no proper design system in place. I started a design system but due to time limitations could not build up on it. The basic system contained elements I had used in designs I created.
The Outcome
In the duration of 9 months which I worked with Arkounting, my focus as the main designer was to align design with business goals. And the values of the company include increasing revenue while providing quality services and solving finance problems for over 13,000+ customers with millions of loans transacted. I was able to function in this capacity and more.
Asides from my regular duties, leading design and interacting with several sub-teams under the tech division, particularly project managers and developers helped me understand problem solving and collaboration on a large scale.