Solutions Finder
The project I remember most for my time at ING DIRECT was an online loan application called the "Solutions Finder", or "SoFi" for short. I ended up being both the UI Developer and UX Designer for the project from start to finish, so I got to take it from Visio diagrams, whiteboard scribbles, personas and wireframes, through to high-fidelity prototypes, final styling and production markup and css. All of this was assembled together with the help of some very talented Java developers and QA testers, who made my pretty buttons and form fields actually produce immediate loan decisions - not just "a human will look at your submission and let you know" but an actual instant online "you're approved!", which was pretty slick for the day.
Below are some snapshots from the original Photoshop comps of the design (note the lorem ipsum filler text), as well as a view of the huge Axure wireframe I built to refine and demonstrate the flow. A live demo of that very wireframe to the bank execs almost killed me when the complex Axure logic repeately crashed the crappy IE6 conference room PC.
I somehow got through it though, and as the final design came into form, I sold them on the idea of changing the house illustration seasonally. Our illustrator produced snow for winter, a kiddie pool out front for summer and foliage for fall. I personally drew a spooky night scene version for a special Halloween promotion, and it turned out so well that I got approval to "haunt the house" for 24 hours every October 31st as an easter egg. Who says banks can't be fun?
SoFi remains one of the biggest and most rewarding projects I've ever worked on. I really loved that loan application, and am glad I was able to save some fragments of it in my archives since it's no longer available online.
