Fintech
TEAM
Stephanie Hu, UX Designer
Aliska Vizirova, Project Manager
GOAL
Reducing user cognitive load and confusion in a complex self service tool through redesigning the interface.
TIMELINE
3/2021 ~ 6/2021
(3 Months)
Why Redesign?
Moody’s Company Scorecard Tool, part of CreditView’s initiative to cover unrated corporations, helps users generate ratings by combining quantitative data with qualitative insights, emulating an analyst's role.
However, its complex interface was intimidating for new users, while its outdated design lacked scalability and essential functionality. Additionally, the introduction of unrated scorecards placed greater importance on qualitative inputs, requiring a more intuitive way to capture and incorporate user-provided assessments.
Initial Design
The redesign focused on five key improvements to enhance usability and clarity:
Transparent Score Calculation
Making the score calculation more visible and central to the user experience.
Improved Hierarchy
Clearly distinguishing factors from sub-factors for better organization.
Qualitative Score Prominence
Emphasizing qualitative inputs, which are essential for unrated scorecards, ensuring they are clearly identified and completed before generating an overall score.
Context at Every Level
Adding "About" sections for both factors and sub-factors to provide better guidance and improve user confidence.
Tailored Inputs
Implementing different input types for quantitative and qualitative sub-factors to better suit their unique requirements.
Understanding the Tool
Moody’s Company Scorecard Tool, part of CreditView’s initiative to cover unrated corporations, helps users generate ratings by combining quantitative data with qualitative insights, emulating an analyst's role. However, its complex interface was intimidating for new users, while its outdated design lacked scalability and essential functionality.
To better understand its design, I spoke to to previous designers of this tool and conducted a UI audit and feature mapping exercise. By deconstructing the interface and annotating core functionalities, I mapped how complex financial data flows through the tool. This process highlighted key user pain points such as unclear methodologies, intimidating information density, and missing contextual guidance, informing targeted design improvements.
Exploration
To explore alternative layouts, I analyzed similar self-service calculation tools to see how their structures and interactions could inform the Company Scorecard Tool. By mapping its features onto these interfaces, I examined different ways to present complex financial data more intuitively. This exercise helped surface useful patterns and opportunities to improve usability and scalability.
similar self-service calculation tools
feature audit & UI insights
From these exercises, I then wireframed different UI structures to organize complex financial data more intuitively.
Accordion: keeps the interface structured by allowing users to expand/collapse factors and sub-factors, reducing visual clutter.
Preselected Tabs: enable quick navigation between key categories while keeping score calculations visible for better context.
Modals: prioritize at-a-glance comparisons, with varying amounts of space for individual sub-factors.
Refinement and Design Challenges
After reviewing with the client design team, we selected the second modal wireframe and I continued to iterate and hone in on the details of the different features and functionality.
A key challenge in the redesign was ensuring the Scorecard Tool integrated seamlessly with CreditView’s existing design patterns. While there wasn’t always a perfect fit, I was able to adapt and incorporate elements from other tools to maintain consistency.
Another challenge was managing the tool’s complexity while improving accuracy. As I refined data representation to better reflect backend calculations, new questions emerged around scale interpretation, visual clarity, and usability. Balancing precision with ease of use required rethinking existing patterns and collaborating with the client team to align the design with both technical and user needs.
Hand-Off
The redesign was well received by the client, as it successfully addressed their initial design goals while improving usability and scalability. After refining the interface and ensuring alignment with user needs, I handed off a prototype for testing.
The redesigned scorecard
The sub-factor score modal for the qualitative sub-factors of unrated scorecards. Descriptions are hidden for frequent users but can be shown for users who may want more context.
The sub-factors modal for quantitative sub-factors that users edit through the slider or by number, see what the score would be and how it would impact the Scorecard-Indicated Outcome.
Retrospective
An intuitive UI isn’t just about looks—it’s about functionality. By redesigning Moody’s Company Scorecard, I transformed a complex interface into one that users could trust and navigate with ease.
After handoff, the tool saw an 8% increase in active users, demonstrating how strategic UX decisions drive engagement and adoption. This project reinforced the importance of balancing analytical accuracy with usability, adapting existing patterns while introducing new ones to support Moody’s expansion into unrated scorecards. By improving transparency, hierarchy, and input handling, the redesign made the tool more structured, efficient, and user-friendly.
