FEDERAL STUDENT AID (FSA)
My Student Aid Account Summary
I was the sole product designer who redesigned FSA account summary page, by working with several outside parties to converge 100+ websites into one experience. This was the flagship functionality project of the NextGen contract with FSA and Accenture, where I set the visual styles and UI for a team of 30+ people for an ongoing project of over 3 years.
My Aid Account Summary created the foundation of UX, UI, visual design, and teamwork needed to complete the major task at hand.
Studentaid.gov is accessed by more than 40 million users. You can see My Aid Account Summary from my prototype here (password: nextg3n) to see the different interfaces of the student loan borrowing experience in America, or view your own journey with a valid FSA username and active account.
Password: nextg3n
THE UX PROCESS | IDEATION & WIREFRAMING
I conducted workshops with clients and created many wireframes. By sharing my ideas with clients early and often, the account summary function evolved to be the best experience envisioned by all stakeholders.
The most effective exercise I led with everyone was creating personas of different borrowers and using post-it notes to figure out what information that would be relevant for them to see in their account at that point of the borrowing journey.
FSA employees from completely different sectors of the huge organization (all running different websites) and teams were able to finally come together with the help of my leadership, encouraging positivity, and ensuring everyone felt heard. Empowering all different kinds of SMEs helped prioritize how and when certain financial information should be alerted to a borrower. This also helped tremendously with identifying all obscure use cases.
Research & Usability Testing
Extensive user research was conducted, including man-on-the-street guerrilla testing, and online usability sessions. Several usability sessions and constant collaboration with clients were vital in determining the most functional and aesthetically pleasing display of this complicated financial data.
