Embedding Notarize into the closing flow

I designed a new feature that would enable title agents to seamlessly return closing documents to lenders.

Project Duration

  • Design timing: June - November 2021

  • Launched Feb 1, 2022 for web, iOS and android apps

The Team
I worked closely with the PM and user researcher nail down the problem we were trying to solve. I brought in the tech lead to discuss feasibility of the feature directions. The user researcher led the charge in designing the research study. The team of engineers (1 BE/iOS dev, 1 FE dev, 1 Android dev) were involved in the design process to give feedback on user experience and feasibility,

— The Context —

The Problem

For hybrid closings* completed on Notarize, lenders only receive the eSigned portion of the closing package through our platform. Currently, title agents return the scanned and uploaded wet sign* docs out-of-band through email or a clunky upload feature in their loan origination software (Encompass).

*A hybrid closing is a closing when a portion of the documents are eSigned and a portion of the documents are notarized in-person with a notary or closing agent.

*Wet sign is a term to describe the process of signing a physical paper document, form or contract with pen and ink.

 
 

Motivations to fix this now

  1. This further embeds Notarize into the hybrid closing flow by easily replacing a painful feature that is in use today.

  2. Every lender has validated to us that they would use it

 

— Design Process —

Notarize already had a feature called the hybrid portal which made sense to build the upload feature into

The current experience only allowed title agents to print the documents to be wet signed.
I had two goals for updating the current experience:

  1. Make it a seamless experience for title agents to upload their wet sign documents

  2. Re-evaluate the UX of this page and make the current experience more useful for title agents

 
 
 
 

To gain a better understanding of the current flow and answer our open questions, the PM and I got on customer calls with title agents and lenders.

  • Question: Should returning the wet sign documents be optional, required or a setting where the lender can decide?

    • Make it optional for V1

  • Question: What could be improved about our current hybrid portal experience?

    • The document statuses should clearly say when esign vs. wet sign documents are complete. Currently, the status says “Complete” after just the eSign portion is complete but this doesn’t make sense for their workflow. They would rather see “eSign Complete” then “Wet Sign Complete.”

    • Documents should be viewable. Currently they are not.

    • Some helpful information is missing from this page like File number, closing type (refi or purchase) and the overall closing status

I mapped out and got buy-in on the user flow.

Updated user flow

 
 

User flow

 
 
 
 

High-Fidelity Designs

This study provided strong validation that our ‘waiting room’ concept is an intuitive and familiar pattern for joining an online video call; several respondents specifically anticipated a ‘Zoom-like’ experience, where they’d wait for the notary ‘host’ to join and launch the meeting when all co-signers were present.

✅ 49 out of 60 (82%) participants expected that clicking ‘Join Now’ would place them in a waiting room or ‘on-hold’ status until their co-signer arrived.
“I would be put into a lobby of some sort, or even the room, stating other members are joining.”

✅ When first landing in the waiting room, 53 out of 60 (88%) answered that they’re the first to arrive

✅ 54 out of 60 (90%) expected that clicking ‘continue without others’ would initiate the meeting without co-signers

✅ 59 out of 60 (98%) understand when their co-signer(s) have arrived and when they’ve all queued up to meet with a notary

High-fidelity Designs

For web, and iOS and android apps.

 

 

Challenges

  • Because the designs required some redesign of our existing flows where the logic was messy, a fair amount of additional scenarios got uncovered as we were building. I needed to go back and account for these scenarios in the designs.

Learnings and next steps

  • When there are so many paths a signer can go down, you need to involve eng early and often!

  • Redesigning something for the better requires a lot of understanding. Oftentimes product underestimates timing because we assume we should just add a new feature on top of the existing flow, but we need to consider everything that’s already there. New features shouldn’t add more cognitive load for the user.

  • As a future iteration, I’d love add more delight to the waiting room — maybe some fun facts to entertain people, or a fun notary-themed game!