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The team operated on the Scrum Framework and consisted of 1 Product owner, 1 Scrum Master, 7 Developers, 1 UX researcher and myself, the Lead Designer. I collaborated with every team member, and stakeholder to architect, reframe processes, influence decisions, and develop product roadmaps.
My roles in the project were; to lead design efforts (visual and UX design) and collaborate with the UX Researcher on the team. Oversee the process redesign from research, design, testing, and implementation. The following were my contribution: Conducted User Interviews in close collaboration with UX Researcher, Designed User Flow & Wireframes, Designed High Fidelity Screens, Conducted A/B Tests, Created prototypes for Usability Testing, Documentation, Dev Handover
Figma, Draw.io, Google Suite, Adobe Suite, Confluence, Jira, Maze
The project spanned 4 months.
In the typical real world scenario, a broker shops around for insurance products from multiple insurance companies on behalf of their clients until they find the right match. Depending on the type of insurance the client is shopping for, the broker might ask a few questions, or they might ask for documentation in the form of inspection reports, appraisals, property valuations, and so on. For example, Nelson is looking for an insurance policy for his catering service business, his insurance broker, Daniel, starts by asking information about the business, when it was established, how many employees etc. These details will be used to help locate the best insurance policy for Nelson’s need. Thus, our platform offers a seamless digitized way to compare multiple tariffs, book insurance products and keep track of all these documents, which otherwise would result in a lot of file keeping and endless documents going back and forth between broker and client.
The Booking Process revamp was done during the second wave of COVID spike and 90% of the team was working remotely. We had members of the team across different time zones (Asia, Europe). This meant that the communication line had to be continuous to prevent communication gaps amongst the team.The project started in August 2021 by identifying the different insurance brokers to understand their workflow and have an understanding of different use cases. I also had different brainstorming sessions including myself, the Product owner (to provide business perspective) and the UX researcher to gather data and understand requirements. My approach to this project was to use the Double Diamond Model to support my strategy of advocating design to help the team to build, iterate and deliver faster.
My output solved the following challenges from research to design before implementation by; Creating User Flow Diagrams to give a clear picture to developers and align on a common ground, Wireframing the User Journeys for engineering to build APIs, Designing High Fidelity prototype for team to visualize, validate business requirements and sign-off for implementation.
How might we refine the experience for insurance brokers who want to select the best insurance policy for their clients.
The solution should provide them with a seamless way to transition from page to page without friction, view relevant information and make informed decisions.
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We identified three major use cases of brokers during our research;
1. Uses the platform for tariff comparison.
2. Uses the platform to generate a proposal document.
3. Uses the platform to book an insurance policy for client.
Below is a persona captured for a Broker detailing motivations and frustrations.
Along with the UX Researcher and the Product Owner, we conducted user interviews and held brainstorming sessions to;
1. Ask questions about broker processes and establish use cases.
2. Understand pain points in the current solution or daily processes.
3. Validate assumptions that we held about certain workflows and processes.
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1. Re-finding a customer/consultation could be too difficultIt is difficult to see what remains to be filled in when filling out the risk questionnaire
2. Different display of calculator results and offers from tendersProblems with orientation in the risk questions (users usually got confused due to structure of long form and multiple question categories)
3. No way to send risk questions to client for review.
4. Insurers are increasing premiums, which creates the risk that customers will churn. The broker therefore carries out a new consultation (which means to understand the premium increase, then assess whether a re-evaluation is expedient and, if necessary, carry it out, finally inform the customer).
5. On the platform, there was no way to visualize expired tariffs or recalculate those expired tariffs.
Not only was it important to get this process right because it was the foundation of the platform, but it also provided an opportunity to provide tremendous value to the business in terms of GWP (the companies metric for revenue generation). We saw an importance of solving these challenges as a way to increase customer growth, retention rate and satisfy market demand.
Based on several discussions with product owners and executive management, we prioritized key areas of the platform that would be most valuable and feasible (this was dependent on manpower and business timelines):
1. A harmonious results page to display calculator results and offers from tender in a more intuitive fashion
2.Revamp IA (Information Architecture) & Design for product page
3. Break booking process into two flows (Cover order & Proposals), this also includes breaking information into steps
4. Introduce a review page
5. A more intuitive success page
I collaborated with the team to translate all the requirements and processes into user flow diagrams.
These diagram helped us have a better process visualization of how users navigate through the platform and and allowed us quickly spot inefficiencies.
This also was useful to hold discussions with engineering to align and ensure that these flows were indeed feasible for implementation.
I approached designing each of these pages and flows iteratively, there was a consistent 2-way communication between myself and other members of the team to ensure we were creating the best experience. I also did a lot of A/B tests together with the UX researcher on the team to quickly validate our assumptions and make changes to the design based on feedback. As part of my process, I detailed out every single flow and weighed the pros and cons of each with the team.
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After selecting a product(s), user get to the results page where they can view the tariffs for those product they’ve selected as well as compare between two tariffs.
To get to the results page, broker needs to fill in a risk questionnaire. This is to have an accurate representation of the business broker is trying to insure, the calculator then analyses these questions and presents a list of relevant tariffs based on the analysis in the results page.
The booking flow is the final piece of the puzzle. After selecting a tariff(s) brokers can either send this as a proposal to client for review (not legally binding) or they can proceed to actually book this tariff for the client (legally binding).
There were several opportunities on the success page.
1. We could track abandonment rate
2. We could give feedback on status of booking and even more specific instructions on what’s next for the broker
3. We could generate policy documents for use of broker.
4. We could introduce a way to monitor customer satisfaction
This was a really exciting project for me to work on as I took the lead to design solutions that provides real value, involved a lot of collaboration, research and iteration. Still, I learned some important takeaways from this project related to product and business processes, I also learned a lot in terms of how to manage shifting priorities and changing roadmaps. The outcome is a revamped platform that features a data driven questionnaire page, product page, result page and booking flow all of which caters for different scenarios while also being scalable - meaning further changes can be made to these designs in future without breaking the already defined structure.
App has been deployed to production and can be found here: https://app.thinksurance.de This is an ongoing initiative as we continue to combine qualitative and quantitative methodologies to refine the platform’s user experience. Here are some interesting insights post launch:
As our platform continues to grow in popularity among brokers and insurance policyholders, here are some metrics used to track success:
1. Customer Growth (acquisition): # of new users
2. Activity: #active users, time between activities, active sessions
3. User satisfaction: NPS, Usability score
4. Customer Loyalty: Retention rate, churn rate
5. Revenue growth: Conversion rate, GWP
Analytic tools we use include Heap, Hotjar, Mouseflow.
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1. How to adapt to changing requirements: New timelines, resourcing issues, and reprioritization meant the scope of the project was constantly changing. I had to adapt to those changes and still deliver the best design in time within constrained timelines.
2. Always fight for good UX: I had to work under very strict technical constraints, but still fight for what I believe is essential to having a good user experience.
3. Don’t overpromise and underdeliver: I learned how to define a true MVP vs. something that is simply not usable and therefore not shippable.