Improving Mortgage Warehouse Workflow
Comerica Bank / 2018
Overview
The Mortgage Warehouse team at Comerica Bank manages all mortgage-related tasks, from coordinating with Relationship Managers to processing payments. Effective communication across different roles and with clients is critical, yet the current workflow lacks an efficient way to facilitate this. Moreover, multiple outdated, complex, and user-unfriendly systems are used throughout the process, making the workflow even more challenging. The UX team’s goal is to streamline the workflow and offer recommendations to improve the usability of these systems.
Role
As a junior designer on the team, I collaborated closely with a seasoned senior designer to bring this project to life. I facilitated user interviews and contributed to key deliverables, including user personas and journey maps.
User Research
The purpose of the research is to understand of the experience of both internal staff and external customers. Given the nature of the project, we began with user interviews to ground our work in real insights.
User Interviews
A series of one-on-one interviews were performed. The sessions consisted of 45-60 min one-on-one moderated interviews both remote and / or in-person with 18+ distributed participants and representing a range of roles.
Additionally 2 separate workshop sessions were performed including one full and one half day attended by 5 primary stakeholders on the operations side of Mortgage Warehouse.
Fig: Interview Roles and Demographics
Insights
Overall, feedback about the people and relationships with Comerica was very positive. One customer shared that they "loved working with Comerica" and always felt supported when they needed help. On the business side, stakeholders expressed strong appreciation for the operations team, particularly for their handling of changes during a recent upgrade. However, this also highlighted the importance of avoiding similar disruptions in the next upgrade cycle.
The main challenges were related to software limitations that forced users to rely on workarounds. While some issues were common across user groups, others were unique to specific roles. Additional concerns focused on process inefficiencies—especially delays in issue notifications and the lack of automation in delivering necessary information.
Conceptualization
To conceptualize our findings and effectively communicate them to stakeholders, we created 10 user personas representing a wide range of roles—from end customers to operations staff.
Customer Personas
This customer’s main concern is minimizing delays in completing loans, with a strong need for a reliable, efficient process unhindered by technical issues. They value the ability to quickly identify and resolve problems, avoid workarounds, and access actionable data through reporting. Speed, autonomy, and system reliability are top priorities.
Business and Opertations Personas
Across the team, each role plays a critical part in supporting both the customer and internal operations. The Business Specialist needs tools that align with their fast-paced schedule and allow visibility into the customer’s view to resolve issues efficiently. The Processor, who directly manages customer transactions, is slowed down by UI clutter and inefficient workflows. The Compliance team is responsible for ensuring all activity meets legal and internal standards, and struggles with disorganized data and poor system clarity. The Shipper relies on up-to-date, streamlined information to stay on schedule, but faces delays due to redundant data and misalignment with timelines. Lastly, the Relationship Manager focuses on delivering a seamless experience to customers, emphasizing simplicity and avoiding overwhelming them with unnecessary options. Together, these roles highlight the need for a clean, organized, and user-aware system design.
Journey Map
With all the personas and systems identified, we created a journey map to visualize interactions across roles, highlight pain points, and capture user emotions throughout the process. This helped both staff and stakeholders gain a shared understanding of the workflow, making it easier to pinpoint areas for improvement and prioritize future enhancements.
Fig: Journey Map
Project Learnings
Although I wasn't able to see this project through to the end due to the timing of my contract, I'm still incredibly grateful to have been part of it and proud to share it as one of my case studies.
I walked away with two key lessons from one of the mentors I respect most—someone who shaped my early days as a designer. First, I learned how to truly prepare for, conduct, and synthesize user interviews. While we’re taught these skills in school, nothing compares to the real-world experience of talking with users and seeing how your insights can shape a product. Second, I learned how to craft meaningful personas and journey maps. It’s not just about listing tasks and steps—it’s about capturing people’s emotions, motivations, and challenges. That’s what reveals the why behind their actions and leads to truly user-centered design.