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Capital One Choice Architecture
Nudging for Financial Good
Target User: Capital One customers who pay only their minimum amount due on their credit card.
Problem Solved: How might I help people stay out of debt and improve their credit scores by connecting a behavior (paying off their credit card) to how it affects their credit score?
My Role: UX Designer + UX Writer
My Process
Because if you don't have a process, you don't know what you're doing.
1
Discover
Problem Framing
Customer Research
2
Design
Current State Analysis
UI Design + UX Writing
3
Test
Usability Test
Updating the Design
1. Discover
Problem framing
Honestly, this project began with a surprise
One day, I logged into my Capital One app to use their Creditwise feature, which helps you see what levers control your credit score. And I noticed something surprising: My credit score went up 9 points by just paying off more on my credit card.
I thought: “Why should this be a surprise to me? Shouldn’t Capital One communicate this to me ahead of time? I might be more motivated to pay more if knew this would happen.”
So, there came my idea and thus the problem frame: “How might I help people stay out of debt and improve their credit scores by connecting a behavior (paying off their credit card) to how it affects their credit score?”
Customer research
First, I thought about who needed this intervention the most: Minimum payers, especially those with lower credit scores.
Minimum payments, obviously, pay the least amount possible. this behavior increases your balance, increases your interest, and decreases your credit score.
Next, I needed to understand if people paying their minimum COULD actually to pay more.
After reading through secondary research, I discovered 3 important insights:
1) Most lower credit score customer could afford to pay at least an extra $25 no problem.
2) Customer who pay more than their minimum feel more accomplished emotionally.
3) Protecting their credit score is THE #1 reason why people try to pay on time.
So I knew my idea had some legs.
My next thought was, “Where in the current experience might this idea be seamlessly integrated as an intervention?”
2. Design
Current State Analysis
To locate the right place for an intervention, I took screenshots of the entire “Make a Payment Flow”.
Ideally, the place to make an intervention is as close to the current behavior as possible. This closeness connects the choice to the message.
In this case, the best place to deploy the message is when the customer chooses the minimum payment amount.
My reasoning? This choice obeys the Law of Locality, which states that an object is directly influenced only by its immediate surroundings.
By intervening RIGHT when they choose the minimum amount, it creates continuity (flow) in cause and effect. The cause being the amount they chose, the effect being the intervention of an amount chosen.
UI design + UX writing
Now that I knew WHERE to intervene, it was time to figure out HOW to intervene with a prototype.
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Choice architecture techniques used:
Framing - I framed the choice to pay more in terms of improving their credit score.
Anchoring - I gave a concrete alternative amount ($50) as a anchor compared to their $25 choice. Asking for an open-ended amount would have been more cognitively challenging.
Kairos - This intervention was all about timing. The suggestion only displays when someone chooses their minimum payment amount, triggering the response.
3. Test
My unanswered questions about the designs were:
How do customers feel about Capital One Intervening about how much they should pay?
Is this the right place to intervene?
Is this enough information?
Is the information designed for maximum usability?
To answer them, I had 6 usability testers submit feedback, which I synthesized.
Overall, this was a well received idea that was delivered in the right way, at the right place and time, and the right info.
The only negatives were around cosmetics and minor usability issues, which I changed.
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The Good
"I wish I had this when I was a college student. Why wouldn't I want to pay a little extra when I can see it could help my credit score?"
User Feedback
The Bad
"I thought the link for paying my $25 minimum might take me away from the flow."
User Feedback
For example, one change was to the secondary CTA styling. One user thought it was a link that would "take them away" from the flow. So I changed it to a ghost button.
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Next Steps
One day I hope to pitch this idea to my co-workers at Capital One to see if it’s viable. My primary question would be what our constraints are from a technical and legal perspective.
But that will be bridge I’ll cross when I get to it.
