How do you make something as mundane as insurance not only interesting but creative and intuitive? How do you give customers all of the information they need to make an informed decision on what policies to buy online? Kaus Insurance was looking to solve their digital absence and bring their customers into the 21st century as well as gain new ones along the way. In addition, Kaus wanted to update not just their site, but their look and feel as well with a new logo and brand.
An all-inclusive responsive insurance website that helps users find, understand, purchase, and manage their policies in one place. Using honesty and transparency first, Kaus is able to put the power back into the users hands while deal with insurance.
Tools Used: Adobe Illustrator, Sketch, InVision
Role: UX Design + Research. Logo Creation + Branding
In order to create a modern website strictly for insurance policy purchasing and management, I started my research by looking into:
1. Pain points for individuals shopping for or purchasing insurance policies online
2. Research current e-commerce trends to see what makes for an easier online shopping experience and apply it to insurance policy purchasing.
3. Research current insurance industry leaders and how they manage their online purchasing options.
METHODS + PROCESS:
• Competitive Analysis
• Market Research
• 1-on-1 Interviews
• User Personas
FINDINGS
After completing 1-on-1 interviews, competitive analysis, and market research, I was able to deduce the target customer was a young professional, over age 26, currently affected by a life change such as buying a new car, buying a new house, or a fresh move to another state.
My findings helped me conclude that Kaus' new website and branding should include:
• Easy to navigate and locate a specific policy
• "Get a Quote" Feature to guide a user to a policy that fits their specific needs
• Modern and Simple human-centric design to add a more personal connection
• Intuitive Checkout process
• Information about each policy should be readily avaliable to help users make a more informed decision
After completing the research stage, I continued onto defining the design and actual navigation of the site at hand.
I began by focusing on a site map for Kaus and the actual navigation that would be easiest for users to find what they are looking for. Based on my research, I chose to go with the simplest organization to help a user get from the Home page to finishing the checkout process. I created a user task flow to demonstrate this navigation as well.
With my site map and user task flow, I began creating a lo-fi prototype. This was a crucial stage before UI design and branding to help me see the site and how it could potentially look and navigate. Due to the user task flow and other user feedback, I was also to see how complex the "Get a Quote" Feature could become. To keep with my original research findings, I chose to keep this feature incredibly simple and intuitive.
To better help me with the final website prototype, I created Kaus' new logo and branding. Based on their original needs to be modern and relevant, I wanted to create a timeless and simple design that was also accessible and neutral in it's color palette.
Design Assets include:
• Logo
• Typography
• Color Palette
• UI Kit including buttons, icons, nav menus, and other interactive elements
With the new visual brand and lo-fi wireframes, I was able to create an interactive prototype for user testing. Using InVision, I was able to construct a complete user journey with tasks for my subjects to completed. These tasks included:
1. Find the Auto Policy specific page
2. Find an insurance policy to purchase through the "Get a Quote" CTAs
3. Purchase the policy you selected
KEY TAKEAWAYS
After conducting usability testing, several key similarities were found between the participants:
• Each person stated aloud that they felt this site was already better organized and easier to see the information displayed that their own current insurance company websites.
• When asked to complete the first task, 2 of the individuals attempted to click on the image of the car that is apart of the 4 square.
• All participants also attempted to click on the ‘Auto’ option in the footer which would also be an option for the full site (it was not linked in the prototype).• All participants completed the first task is no issue and were able to find the ‘Get a Quote’ section as well as interpret all symbols (question marks and downward arrows correctly).
• All participants also continued forward with the purchasing process with no issues.
While insurance companies and their products could be described as "uninteresting" or "tedious", the design, look, and feel of their policies don't have to be. Through research, questioning motives, and looking to find a simpler way to purchase and manage insurance, Kaus can become much more relevant on the digital stage. After a couple months of research, the key takeaway is that simplicity is king when purchasing insurance.
