Aussie Home Loans

Project
Website

Client
Lendi Group

Sector
Finance

The Scenario

Lendi Group is a mortgage brokerage whose mission is to be the gold standard for how Australians buy, sell, and own a home. When Lendi and Aussie merged in 2021, the first big test for the couple was to migrate aussie.com.au to a new platform by February 2023 with or without ideal conditions to do it justice.

What they needed was a modern, flexible website — one that appealed to an increasingly diverse customer base and would stand the test of time in a quickly evolving industry. For me, this meant leading the design effort within a cross-functional CMS team to deliver something that celebrated Aussie's long-running commitment to keeping home loans human while laying the groundwork for what's next.

A purpose-built digital home for the next chapter of Aussie Home Loans.

When I stepped into Lendi Group to lead design across the website transformation, they had a solid, trustworthy digital experience but one that didn't provide a strong experience for a customer to move smarter, faster, and with confidence. With more than 1,000 brokers and more than 230 stores at their back, the opportunity was ripe. 

Over the next nine months, I learned to navigate the tension between quality and speed, make evidence-based design decisions under pressure, and deliver an experience that moved the dial for millions of Australians trying to find, buy, and own a property — keeping home loans human in a sea of faceless digital-led providers.

More than assumptions — understanding who we were designing for.

Driven by prospective home buyers across various life stages who all expressed a common appetite for simple but powerful financial tools, we conducted qualitative research with prospective customers, held empathy mapping workshops to unpack the emotional baggage of the mortgage journey, and used opportunity solution trees to identify the right design problems to tackle. Every significant decision that followed was informed by research.

Designing an environment where every interaction has purpose.

Designed for simplicity and scale within a multi-branded design system, Aussie's interface is built to be accessible to anyone — from an experienced investor to a first-home buyer — to take the next step in their home loan journey with confidence.

Three decisions in particular led to this outcome.

The navigation was rebuilt from ground-up rather than carried over from Lendi.com.au — a decision that  we validated through targeted Askable interviews before presenting to an all-hands stand-up with product leadership. 

The broker and store search was redesigned to improve the visibility of all brokers whose livelihoods depended on appearing in a high-intent search.

The borrowing power calculator was carried over as a public-facing tool despite pushes to fold it at launch — because the data told us it was driving meaningful organic traffic. 

The best of Aussie, translated for Lendi.

Aussie's customers perform in value-rich, high-intent environments. The website's design sought to enable this integration — marrying Aussie's heavy but familiar design language with new tools that would enable the next effortless step.

Before landing on solutions, we explored multiple directions for navigation architecture, calculator experiences, and search interaction patterns. Stakeholder presentations — including product leadership, engineering, and marketing — were integrated early to mitigate the risk of late pivots and build confidence in the design direction before a single line of code was written.

What I did...

Product

Design

Website strategy and architecture
UX and UI design
Interaction design and prototyping
User testing

Unlocking a Digital Home for Thousands

Outcomes

When the first Aussie Mortgage Broker landed on the platform, it meant the business could finally unlock a new way for thousands to plan, plot, and purchase their next home.

Months to deliver the transformation

Additional mortgage submissions in FY24

Increase in submissions within three months of launch

Thank you for taking a walk in the woods.

SAMUEL HAYWOOD

WHACKED TOGETHER BY SAM HAYWOOD SINCE 2026