Guest Checkout

Kiva is a non-profit organization that aims to expand financial inclusivity for underserved communities through loans.
At the time, lenders were required to create an account in order to lend to borrowers, resulting in missed opportunities for those in need. This case study dives into how we developed a new guest checkout solution that eliminates this barrier, enabling lenders to quickly assist borrowers in need without the commitment of account creation.

ROLE

Sole product designer

TEAM

1 Product Manager
3 Engineers
1 Marketer
1 Copywriter

DURATION AND FORMATS

8 weeks for desktop

Problem

When analyzing the checkout funnel, we observed there was an opportunity to increase conversion by optimizing the checkout stage.

Hypothesis

Some first-time users may not be completing checkout because account creation is a prerequisite for checkout.
Before
When analyzing the checkout funnel, we observed there was an opportunity to increase conversion by optimizing the checkout stage.
After
Final designs of the new guest checkout removes the account creation barrier, making it easier for people to lend to those in need.

How we got there

Success metrics

  1. What's the conversion rate for unregistered users?
  2. What % of guest checkout users are converting to account holders?
  3. What's the lifetime value of unregistered users by session?

Project goals

  1. Allow people to check out without creating an account.
  2. Design an MVP of the new Guest Checkout experience.
  3. Encourage users to create an account after checking out as a guest.

Research

I gathered insights from external research studies on cart abandonment and conducted competitive research on 12 companies to compare how guest checkout was used.

Test the hypothesis

We ran a quick test to assess the validity of our hypothesis by changing the button copy from “Login to continue” to “Continue” (inspired by “The $300 Million Button”). From that small copy change, we saw an increase in conversion which validated our hypothesis and allowed us to move forward in creating the guest checkout flow.

Exploring design treatments

I started off by wireframing and eased my way up to high fidelity after rounds of feedback from the design, product, and engineering teams.
review & Payment
The key requirements for this part of the checkout flow was to design a way for users to go through the guest checkout flow and to obtain their email before they finish payment.

First attempts were inspired by common UI patterns found on most retail sites -- displaying the options to either sign in or continue as a guest. 
01
Team feedback:

A complete redesign of the checkout flow was out of scope for this project, dial it back (archived for later use).

02
Team feedback:

Added an unnecessary step to the flow with the split view and research more into when to ask for the user's email.

Final designs
Team feedback:

 By re-using the existing checkout design, we were able to reduce the engineering workload which helped us stay on track and meet our deadlines.

Thanks
Since one of our success metrics was to get guest checkout users to create an account, the thinking here was to surface a way for users to quickly create an account right after payment by asking for minimal personal info and stating some of our value props.
‍
The challenge here was information hierarchy and working with the product and engineering teams on the account creation UX flow -- brainstorming different ways on how this could be done while notating any technical constraints.

*Note: the account creation flow is not shown for security purposes.
01
Team feedback:

Showed too many things at once, distracting users from the business goal which is to create an account.

02
Team feedback:

The layout of the second iteration was good for scalability as it highlighted the account creation upsell and can be used for other upsells as well.

Final design
Team feedback:

Doesn't meet some of the accessibility requirements and the conjoined design created engineering complications which is why in the final design, I detached the 3 left options from the right and instead, used states to visually communicate the correlation between each option.

confirmation email
I worked with marketing on the email content and strategy along with our visual designer, Eunsoo Lee, who led the brand style and created the illustrations.

Our strategy was to construct an order confirmation email that not only shows order details, but to treat this as a second opportunity to get users to create an account (if they didn’t already at the end of checkout).
01
02
Final
Team feedback:

Liked the information hierarchy and upsell strategy, but wanted more thought into the bottom section of the email. Experimenting with the idea of tying in one of Kiva's value props (repayments) while answering a common misconception of Kiva -- it's a loan, not a donation.

Spec & Handoff

Finally, I used Figma to spec and present the V1 Guest Checkout flow to our engineering team.

Learnings

  1. Broadening my understanding of how designs and emails are interconnected, far beyond the screen-by-screen I was used to in other projects.
  2. I made the mistake of designing for desktop first to cater to Kiva's primary audience, but learned to design for mobile first -- helping to expand Kiva's reach to mobile.
  3. Thankful to our senior designer who pushed me to think about accessibility (thank you, Nathan!).
  4. Figma was an amazing tool to use during this remote internship. It gave me the ability to present work for feedback, collaborate with stakeholders, and document everything in one spot so that future designers can grasp the project context and learn about the important design decisions made.