KAUS Insurance website case study
Client:
Kaus Insurance
Duration:
8 weeks
Roles:
UI/UX Designer, UX researcher, Interviewer, Usability Test moderator, Interaction Designer
Tools:
User Research, Wireframing, Branding, UI Design, Prototyping, and Testing
Methodology & Process
To build a product that was functional, robust with a good user experience. It was important to utilize a problem-solving process liked “design thinking” that provides a solution-based approach in this matter. It was very useful in tackling complex problems that were not easily defined, understanding the user’s needed, re-framing the problem in human-centric ways, and adopting a hands-on approach to testing the solution out.
Empathise
Introduction / background
KAUS insurance was a mocked company that was created to portray as the client of the project. The background story for KAUS insurance was established to give it a more realistic outcome. KAUS insurance had been in the business of selling insurance for more than 30 years. They usually operate by selling insurance policies directly to customers through their regional agents. With the rise of the internet and mobile devices, KAUS felt they were losing ground and wished to catch up. Knowing that young people were more tech-savvy, they targeted to tap into the market with the right policy proposition that was well suited to a younger audience. That includes freshening up their branding with an easy to used insurance e-commerce website.
Project statement
This project aims to create a responsive e-commerce site to sell insurance policies online, directly to customers. Customers purchasing insurance online might find it a bit different than purchasing it through an agent. They might feel hesitant, overwhelmed, or confused about the typed of insurance to purchase, worry if the policy was right for them or if they were unsure if they could afford the policy monthly commitment.
Research stage
Research goal
To better empathize & define the problem with the need to understand people's behaviour, attitude, and pain points when choosing their insurance policies, so that we can provide a good experience when they purchase it online.
Research methodology used
1) Competitive Analysis is the process of identifying competitors and evaluating their strategies in order to determine their weaknesses and strengths in order to better your own company.
2) User interviews can be a great way to extract information from users for user experience understanding, usability understanding and ideation.
Competition analysis
User Interview - Empathy research
The interview consisted of 4 participants in a 1 on 1 scenario over video conference. The age of the participant ranges from 24 until 40 years old from different backgrounds and occupations.
Empathy Research finding
● Participants found it frustrating having to deal with agents as they push for hard sells and not making the fine print clear from the start.
● Participants believe that transparency in policy description should be a priority for insurance e-commerce websites but not too lengthy in its description.
● Some comparison options for policy cost.
Define
With some data collected during the empathy research finding, I move next to sort the data to establish a persona with main points of empathy map that include thinking, feeling and pains factors that I can rely on in creating the design later.
UX Persona
Persona Empathy map
Ideate
Planning & design
In order to make the product taking into shape, I have begun to draft out the roadmap for product development. Starting with the product’s information architecture.
Information Architecture
As I am going to establish the basic foundation of KAUS website, I will start off with planning the site content and layout through a few methods below.
● Card sorting
● Sitemaps
● Low fidelity wireframes - sketches
Card sorting exercise overview.
20 topic cards were created for the sorting exercise that involved 10 participants ranging from 25 to 50 years old. The open card method was applied to all participants. In which the finding found that they have managed to sort into 2 to 7 categories from the topic. Using optimal workshop software, it is able to generate a similarity chart matrix and best merge dendrogram based on the exercise outcome.
Sitemaps
From the data of the categories collected in the previous exercise, I move on next to creating a sitemap for KAUS insurance. Creating the sitemaps makes reviewing the structure of the pages in the website a breeze and will be helpful for SEO in the future.
Designing the interaction
With the categories sorted in the sitemaps, I proceed to create a rough sketch of the homepage based on the information collected and keeping in mind the UX persona preference.
Task flow diagram
Using the persona and the storyboard that was created before, I started to draft out how my persona “Justin” would make the policy purchase task on KAUS website in this task flow diagram.
User flow diagram
Utilizing both the task flow diagram and the sitemap, I started to develop a user flow diagram to draft out the user actions that they may take when navigating through the website and making the purchase.
Wireframe stage
With all the information from the previous exercise like the user flow, task flow, sitemap and wireframe sketches available to me, I started to create a mid-fidelity wireframe for KAUS website. I started off by creating the homepage layout and then proceeded in creating other pages like the product page, search page and claim page.
Mood board and branding ideation
Moving ahead to the design phase, a mood board is explored for the style that might be used for the website and logo design.
User interface design
UI Kits
With the logo and brand style established, I started to draft out the UI kit that might suit the High Fidelity website screens. Each detail like the icon logo and the illustration style choice is something I tried to relate back to the UX persona I created before.
Prototypes
High Fidelity websites pages are created. Using the wireframes as the starting points I started creating the website pages such as homepage, product page, claim page and FAQ page. Subsequently, purchasing pages and the multi-step form is built up subsequently.
Testing
Prototype Version 01
With the HiFi websites screen pages created. I started to link them accordingly so that they may have some functionality during testing.
Usability tests
Usability tests are then prepared with 4 participants to go through the website in 2 scenarios. The test is done with the 4 participants through remote testing using Zoom and Figma prototype features to test out the scenarios below.
Scenario 01: Navigate through KAUS homepage and look into the product page.
Scenario 02: Go through the multi-step form for quotation and purchase process.
The usability findings are then recorded and then organized into post notes feedback which then is sorted into each category of an important topic in good, pains and improvement for each section of the prototype in the next variation.
Feedback collected
Organizing the feedback from the participants in affinity map format helps to highlight important topics in good, pains and improvement for each section of the prototype in the next variation.
Key areas to improve in next version is
1) A lot of users are reporting pain-points in the multi-step form and this will be made a priority for improvement in the next iteration.
2) On the product page, each insurance category will need to add a button for the purchasing process.
3) Change the FAQ link to a button.
Prototype Version 02
A revised prototype is created based on the user pains and improvements points that have been highlighted in the affinity map.
Conclusion
What I have learned.
It has been a very exciting project for me working on KAUS insurance e-commerce site. I was already intrigued by the idea when it was presented as selling insurance policies online is something new as usually policies are sold directly to customers. Among the challenges that I encounter is the perception that selling insurance online is much of uncharted grounds and most people prefer buying it through agents. By acknowledging user/customers' pain points and mindsets, I was able to come up with a workable solution for users to purchase insurance online.
Next steps
1) Retest the latest variation of the prototype that includes the changes in order to further validate the design
2) Look into improving one aspect that can't be tested out, which is the customer service aspect. The human touchpoint in the website design in which the user who might interact with to finalize their purchase or sort out any issue regarding the policy.
3) Explore or refine the ways to inspire confidence in the user purchasing process.
Selected Works
