NYC DCWP - Financial Empowerment Center

Scheduling and Beyond with NYC’s Financial Empowerment Center

Client

The Financial Empowerment Center (FEC) at New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) provides free financial counseling and coaching services to NYC residents regardless of their immigration status.

These services include counseling for budgeting assistance, debt management, credit improvement, student loans, and more.

My Role

Design Lead.
Collaborating closely with 3 designers and working on facilitating design ideation sessions, delegating tasks and leading design decisions.

Duration

12 weeks (2024)

User Problem

Recently, FEC’s website saw a 300% increase in traffic, driven by the growth strategy and marketing efforts.
However, the appointment booking conversion rates remain low due to the clunky and unintuitive interaction, suggesting that users face significant barriers preventing them from completing online bookings of financial counselings.

“We would like to lower the drops-offs during appointment-making process by improving the ease of use and eliminate any barriers.” 
- Peggy, Director of digital communication marketing team

(From step 1 to step 2 — It’s not a freeze frame.😅)

(Step 2 — excessive loading time and overwhelming information.)

Our Solution

By identifying key usability issues and problems faced by users and financial counselors after 8 weeks, 2 strategies are mapped out to support our design solutions:

Enhancing service awareness to ensure users understand the value and outcomes of financial counseling with the FEC.
Improving the usability of the portal to streamline the appointment booking process, thereby boosting the appointment booking rate.

Why start with mobile screens instead of desktop's? we prioritized design and experiences on mobile during the initial stage due to the marketing report of DCWP indicating that 80% users accessed the service using mobiles.

A redesigned landing page with clear calls-to-action, visual icons, information architecture and simplified service categories to educate clients about services, and manage expectations in the beginning.

Broke down the booking flow into smaller, guided steps using progressive disclosure is the key concept of our solutions, empowering the process more intuitive, faster, and less overwhelming for users across all ages.