A financial specialist reached out to share their frustration with the current mortgage application process, noting that clients often submit altered or inaccurate financial documents such as T1s, T4s and pay stubs in an attempt to qualify for loans. Without a reliable way to verify these documents early on, brokers can spend weeks preparing applications, only to have them rejected by lenders due to issues that weren’t caught in time. This results in wasted time, unhappy clients and lost revenue.

“Roughly 10% to 20% (1 in 10) mortgage applications involve falsified financial information.”

— CoreLogic

To get a better understanding of the problem and really understand our users' thought process, I browsed through online forums and gathered direct feedback from social media channels. A few common themes emerged — mainly the stress of dealing with fake or inaccurate documents, the time lost manually checking everything and the fact that there were little tools built specifically to help with this kind of work. Insights revealed:

✖︎ Dealing with Fraud & Rejections
Brokers shared how frustrating it is to spend weeks on a deal, only to have the bank reject it at the last minute because a document was fake or off. It’s not just wasted time but it affects their relationships with clients too.

✖︎ Too Much Manual Work
Right now, checking financial documents is a slow, manual process. There’s a lot of back-and-forth, and even then, things can be missed. Most brokers said they wished there was a quicker, more reliable way to catch issues early on.

✖︎ Lack of Tools Made for This
Everyone’s just piecing together their own systems — spreadsheets, email threads, side tools but there’s little products out there to verify mortgage documents at ease.

To make sure the product really spoke to the people using it, I created a user persona based off of the frustrations shared by mortgage brokers and their needs. This process helped guide design decisions and reminded me to focus on what matters most  — users needs.

Responding to the problems, I moved onto creating low-fidelity wireframes to explore possible solutions. Each frame represents a step to ensure users can easily view applications, add new applicants and upload financial documents.

After curating a moodboard, we opted for a high contrast colour palette to highlight document status and guide user attention. The black and white theme keeps the experience minimal and professional, while the bold accent elements, such as status tags and call-to-actions buttons stand out clearly. This approach not only improves readability, but also helps users quickly scan for errors or actions.

The goal for the True Files logo was to create a brand that felt modern, trustworthy and strong. I combined a clean wordmark with a simple shield icon, symbolizing protection, security and strength, which aligns closely with the True File's purpose of verifying sensitive financial documents. The shield’s smooth, curved edges give it a contemporary and professional look without feeling corporate or abstract. To complement this, I chose a bold sans serif typeface with slightly rounded edges to maintain visual harmony.

The solution resulted in a user-friendly interface where each mortgage application is displayed as its own card, featuring a clear overview of all applicants and the submitted number of documents. From the dashboard, brokers can easily search for clients, start new applications and quickly access client documents and view their status.

Once inside an application, documents belonging to each member are displayed in collapsible cards that surface real-time AI analysis results. Each document reveals critical insights, such as flagged issues or mismatched information, colour-coded by severity (red for critical errors, yellow for warnings, green for passed). The system clearly highlights the issue that needs attention, for example; an invalid SIN or incorrect address so that brokers can take action with confidence.

After performing usability testing, we identified the need for a simple way for users to report issues directly within the platform. In response, I designed a feedback feature that allows brokers to quickly describe and submit any problems they encounter. This input form, accessible by clicking on the speech bubble icon, appears alongside flagged documents making it easy for users to submit feedback without disrupting their workflow.