Rocket Mortgage

Problem

In 2013, getting a mortgage was still a slow, complicated process. Even when parts of the application could happen online, clients still relied heavily on mortgage bankers and had to wait to understand what they qualified for.

We saw an opportunity to change that. What if clients could apply, understand their options, and get approved for a mortgage online in minutes?

How might we give clients more control over getting a mortgage and make the process simple, clear, and fast?

My role

UX Design Lead

I led the design of Rocket Mortgage from the start of the project in January 2013 through its launch at the end of 2015. I worked closely with Product, Research, Content, and Engineering to shape the experience, prototype and test ideas, and bring the product to launch. I continued leading the design after launch as the experience evolved.

Customer Insights & Ideation

I partnered with three Product Managers, one UX Researcher, and two UX Designers and listened to mortgage banker and client calls to understand how people approached the mortgage process. We uncovered behaviors, needs, and pain points that helped shape the product and its features.

Experience Strategy & Vision

I worked with Content Strategy and UX Research to define three core personas and map the end-to-end customer journey. I created process flows and interactive prototypes to show how the experience could work and help the team align around a shared direction.

Planning & Scope

I partnered with Product Managers and Analysts to shape product direction, scope, and priorities. I also wrote user stories to translate the experience into requirements the team could build.

Design & Validation

Rocket Mortgage launched in 2015 as the first end-to-end completely online mortgage experience, giving clients a new way to move through the mortgage process online.

The work also extended beyond Rocket Mortgage. The pattern library created a shared design language that could be reused across products and teams, helping bring greater consistency to the broader Quicken Loans experience.

Impact

Rocket Mortgage taught me how much design can change an experience people have accepted as complicated simply because that is how it has always been done. We were not just putting the existing mortgage process online. We were rethinking how it could work when clients had more control and could make progress on their own.

It also changed how I thought about scale. As Rocket Mortgage grew, reusable patterns and shared standards helped us take what we learned from one product and apply it across a much larger experience.

Reflections

Rocket Mortgage taught me how much design can change an experience people have accepted as complicated simply because that is how it has always been done. We were not just putting the existing mortgage process online. We had to rethink how it could work when clients had more control and could make progress on their own.

It also showed me the importance of designing beyond a single product. As Rocket Mortgage grew, creating reusable patterns and shared standards helped us think about how good design could scale across teams and experiences, not just one interface.