One of my last projects at Citi was credit card application form redesign project for the direct mail channel.  We were getting a high-percentage of incomplete application forms that caused a lower percent of the applications being approved.

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A small task team was put together and we started gathering more concrete numbers behind the incomplete application forms - % incomplete, most frequently omitted fields etc.  The credit card operations team provided more insights into the missing fields - they were the ones following up with the customers regarding the incomplete forms and therefore had first-hand information on what happened.  

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What we discovered was that some customers were reluctant to provide sensitive personal information on paper, and some were simply unsure of the fields that were required. 

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We had to clear with our legal team on the fields required first.  Once we had our decision boundary set, we started to brainstorm with our designer what a new application form would look like.  We focused on a few core design principles: simple, usable, easiness to complete.  As a result, we introduced clearer visual hierarchy, removed a few optional fields, and broke the questions into personal (required) vs. additional (optional).

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This is what the new form looks like:

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