Prior Experience / Idean
USAA
Making one of life's most complex financial journeys easier to navigate.
Buying a home involves a long series of decisions, documents, approvals and conversations. USAA wanted to bring more of that journey online—giving Members clearer visibility into their mortgage, helping them understand what happens next, and reducing unnecessary back-and-forth with the mortgage team.
01 / The Opportunity
The mortgage experience extended far beyond a single application.
Members needed to understand where their loan stood, what they needed to do next, and what USAA was waiting on from them. Much of that visibility depended on conversations with the mortgage team.
The opportunity was to turn those disconnected interactions into a digital experience Members could navigate with greater confidence and independence.
Where does my mortgage stand?
Clear visibility into the current status of the loan.
What do I need to do next?
Clear actions and guidance throughout the process.
What does USAA need from me?
An easier way to understand, provide and track required information and documentation.
02 / Understanding the Journey
Researching the experience from multiple sides.
Mortgage complexity wasn't confined to one interface or one type of user.
The team looked across the broader journey to understand the experience of Members getting mortgages, employees supporting them, realtors working alongside them and stakeholders responsible for the service.
Stakeholder interviews
Employee shadowing sessions
Realtor interviews
Homebuyer survey responses
USAA Member interviews
Non-USAA Member interviews
03 / From Research to Focus
Turning a complicated journey into clear design priorities.
Research revealed recurring pain points across three areas.
Documentation Management
Members needed a clearer way to understand, submit and track documents required throughout the mortgage process.
Streamlined Communication
Important conversations and updates were spread across different interactions, making it difficult to understand what had happened and what required attention.
Contextual Education
Especially for first-time homebuyers, the process involved unfamiliar terminology, decisions and requirements. Members needed guidance in context rather than having to know which questions to ask.
04 / Exploring & Validating the Experience
Designing possibilities before committing to a solution.
The team explored multiple concepts based on the research, then tested those directions with Members. Rather than selecting a single concept, validation identified the strongest elements across them, which were brought together into the final experience direction.
Research
Understand the journey
Frame
Define experience priorities
Explore
Create multiple concepts
Validate
Test usefulness with Members
Converge
Bring the strongest ideas into one direction
05 / Member Mortgage Hub
Making progress, actions and communication visible.
The final Member Mortgage Hub centered the experience around a dashboard that helped Members understand where they were in the mortgage process and what needed their attention.
Together, these capabilities turned the mortgage process from a series of disconnected interactions into a more visible digital journey.
Status
See where the mortgage stands and understand recent activity.
Tasks
Know what actions need to be completed and when.
Documents
Submit and track required mortgage documentation.
Team
Understand who is involved and centralize communication with the mortgage team.
06 / Refinance Hub
Designing for a different kind of mortgage decision.
Refinancing introduced a different set of needs.
Research showed that Members did significant comparison shopping when considering a refinance, so simply reusing the purchase experience would not address the same questions.
The team created a version of the Mortgage Hub tailored specifically to refinancing. A new My Loan comparison experience allowed Members to explore different options and understand how their selections could affect projected payments.
Choices before committing
07 / Employee Mortgage Hub
Improving the experience behind the experience.
Research also uncovered pain points for Loan Officers and Loan Processors working through the mortgage process internally.
The team explored an Employee Mortgage Hub designed to help USAA employees manage their pipeline, track Member progress, understand where attention was required, interact with Members and stay current on activity across their cases.
Near-term MVP
A solution designed around capabilities that could be implemented sooner.
Future Vision
A more ambitious concept exploring additional capabilities and a longer-term direction for the employee experience.
08 / The Connected Experience
Designing across the journey—not just the screen.
The work moved from understanding the mortgage journey as a whole to designing experiences for the people navigating it and the employees supporting them.
Buying
Member Mortgage Hub
- Status
- Tasks
- Documents
- Communication
Refinancing
Member Refinance Hub
- Loan options
- Rate comparison
- Projected payments
- Decision support
Supporting
Employee Mortgage Hub
- Pipeline management
- Member progress
- Case activity
- Employee workflows
The Mortgage Hub work translated a fragmented, high-stakes financial journey into a more visible and connected digital experience—helping Members understand what was happening, what they needed to do next and how to move forward, while also exploring better tools for the employees supporting them.
Complex journeys need connected thinking.
Stilly helps connect research, product strategy and experience design to solve complex customer journeys from end to end.
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