Tech Product Manager: Prosper 1 Click Quote, Not Really 1 Click

Prosper P2P Lender

According to its website, "Prosper is is America's first peer-to-peer lending marketplace, with more than 2 million members and over $2BB in funded loans."

I've been a Prosper member for years, an early adopter since the first days before other competitors popped up. I've also been a fan of Kiva.org (a similar, yet different kind of service where the loans are made interest-free to developing world individuals), where I have made over 100 loans.

1 Click Quote

I've only used Prosper as an investor, loaning out small micro-loans to various users - most of them consolidating debt, or paying off an auto loan, or borrowing money for home improvement. I decided to see what it would look like to become a borrower.

I loved the simplicity of the trigger from the investor summary page, prompting me to consider borrowing a loan.

Figure 1

You are teased with a low APR, and big call to action "Get Rate" button.

Now, I'm already logged in as a user ... meaning my basic info is available. Too bad, then, when I click on Get Rate, I'm routed to this page.

Figure 2

Prompting me to provide the purpose of loan and some other basic info. It still like the clean UI, but my problem with this is, why make me repeat the same information? (Figure 1 and Figure 2 essentially duplicate information). Why make me do this?

Further disappointment then, when I am routed to the next page, where I am told "Get a Custom Rate in 1 Click." This is my 3rd click, so I feel this is bit mismatched from meeting expectations point of view.

Figure 3

Understandably. Many of this has to do with the regulated nature of lending and borrowing industries. Often, the business constraints are such, that the end goal is not the most streamlined user experience (UX). Sometimes, it makes product sense to create some friction for the user. That said, I think there's clearly a room for improvement in conversion and user experience here.

Anybody home?

As another example of UX issues I found with Prosper. When I go to my investor profile page, I see something like this. This is me (figure 4).

Figure 4

What happens when I click on the "View" hyperlink? I get a broken link. Page Not found (Figure 5). Which is not bad. The page reroutes to the summary page shortly.

Figure 5

However, look at a different Page Not Found message by another product - StackExchange. There, you see clearly more humor. It is a way of empathizing with the user.

"You didn't find what you were looking for?"

"We are sorry, let's see if we can at least make you smile while we help you." That seems to be StackExchange approach (Figure 6).

Figure 6

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