Properati Créditos
Simplifying Loan Referrals for Buyers, Agents, and Customer Service
2020
Loans
Introduction
It’s 2020, and I’m diving into a project that could make a real difference for people trying to buy homes in Colombia, Perú, and Ecuador.
Properati started as a digital platform for renting, buying, and selling homes. Over time, they saw an opportunity to expand their horizons—helping buyers secure loans while also making the process smoother for sellers and agents.
I joined a small, focused team tasked with digitizing this highly manual process. We were just four people: a full-stack developer, an economics specialist, a product manager, and me, the product designer.
Our goal? To build a digital solution that simplified the loan process for house buyers, state agents, and customer service teams.
Diving into research
To design something truly useful, we needed to understand the real challenges users faced. We conducted user interviews and the customer service team, who had firsthand experience with the biggest roadblocks.
I distilled this data into user personas, helping us empathize with each group and map out their specific pain points.
Long story short: House buyers were overwhelmed by the complexity of loan applications and State Agents felt bogged down by the lengthy referral process.
Crafting an integral solution
As a product team, we needed to create a web experience for both state agents referring clients and buyers seeking loans.
But we also had to consider the customer service (CS) team, who had been manually acting as intermediaries between banks and buyers. I interviewed the CS team to understand the pain points in their workflow. This insight was crucial in shaping the product.
Landing Pages
Proposed clear, intuitive landing pages for both buyers and state agents.
For buyers, the focus was on providing clear information, helpful guidance, and accessible contact points.
For state agents, the priority was streamlining the referral process to make it quick and effortless.
Buyers Contact Form
I proposed short but effective form that collected all the essential information without feeling intrusive.
Process Automation
Visual identity and final UI
The Properati Créditos brand was already established, so I worked on adapting the UI to fit within the existing identity, keeping things consistent with their logo, colors, fonts, and illustration style.
The challenge here was making sure the design was welcoming and professional, creating trust for users handling sensitive financial information.
I worked in Sketch for the design, using Zeplin and a lot of conversations to ensure smooth handoff to the developers.
Header
Stakeholders strongly preferred using photos of people in the product. To unify these images with the information, I incorporated the logo's shape as a plain color background.
Loan Calculator
Designed to help users estimate the potential costs of their loan. A clear call-to-action button directs them to the buyers contact form.
Illustrations
To explain the process to users, I broke it down into clear steps and created a set of illustrations to complement each stage.
I also designed a simpler illustration style for the cards explaining the different types of credits—because I’ll always take the opportunity to illustrate something! 😊
The unexpected pause
Just as things were gaining momentum, the world changed. The pandemic struck, and the real estate market came to a halt.
It was frustrating, to say the least. We had all these ideas, all these plans for the future—testing, iterations, improvements—but with the market frozen, the project had to be put on pause.
What I learned
Despite the setback, I gained an invaluable experience. I learned how to adapt quickly, designing an MVP that was good enough to meet the immediate needs of users. I also worked closely with stakeholders and developers, learning to collaborate in ways that pushed the product forward, even under challenging circumstances.