Pursuit
North Western Mutual offers different types of life insurance to suit its user needs. They also provide financial planning services for individuals and businesses. Their clientele ranges from parents to CEO's. North Western Mutual wanted to improve and modernize their client engagement process which involves their prospect clients and insurance agents.
UX team
We had 2 members from the UX team to work on research and prototype creation since this was a pursuit exercise. I was entitled to work on the research and experience design. A visual designer was assigned to create high quality visuals.
Design Process
research
Initial groundwork involved understanding the existing client engagement process i.e. how an insurance agent or financial representative (FR) reaches out to a client, how he interacts with the client and how he closes a deal with their clients.
My work began by interacting with different Financial representative to understand how they meet with a prospect client and what exactly happens in their client meetings.
The following questions came up:
- What kind of questions a client usually asks a FR ?
- How the FR answers a particular question ?
- Do they use any visual aids to convey an idea or solution ?
- Do they allow their customer to interact with their data models?
It was found that most of the FRs were working around 12-15 hours a day, meeting clients, fact finding and making calls to prospect clients. They were using conventional tools like notepads, files for collecting data and facts.
They were also using laptops and computers to compute data models, insurance options and do presentations to their clients. Also the interface used to compute data models/financial solution was very restrictive.
I noticed that FRs cannot compare different products or customize solutions with hybrid products.
Conventional methods for book keeping - Very basic visual aids - Customer cannot interact with data models - Solution interface was linear
Analysis/Design Direction
Based on the research I concluded the following:
- FRs need a centralized, integrated and easily accessible system to improve their efficiency
- New and exciting user interface that allows customer interaction
- The interface should help FRs to compare various products and to propose an array of solutions
- Data model creation should be easier and solution should be customizable
- There was also a need for collaboration (like sharing data models, financial solution template) among FRs
experience design
In terms of the User experience I wanted to create something new and exciting for both the client and FRs. I wanted to design an interface that is easy to understand and at the same time provide the flexibility to compare products and solution. I felt that the FR's should be able to easily create data models, financial recommendations and product solutions. It should be easily presentable to the client, provided the they should be able to change parameters and see the difference in the solution.
What is the device/interface that would be easy for a common user to interact with ?
With this as a guiding question I looked at different interface designs and devices. Tablet and mobile devices with touch screens were obvious choices.
- Mobile device had to be eliminated because the data density of the solution and data models were overwhelming on a mobile screen.
- Tablets are easy to carry around and they can be used for presentation and interaction.
- Touch controls are intuitive and takes less training to adapt to a new system.
- Tablets with internet and data connections allow the FRs to access data on the go and also allows them to stay connected and share experience, data and solutions with other FRs.
Sketching
I started sketching user screens based on use cases that were created with the help of FRs. I tried to include different forms and data FRs were filling in the existing system. I also took a crack at how a dash board for FRs might look. Tablet's break point were considered for this exercise.
Interface Design
Form break down: In this phase I concentrated on streamlining the form that were required to create data model or solution.
Usually FRs input customer data, policy and benefit information. So I decided to break the forms in to different sections asking only for relevant data in each section.
Templates : It was observed that 80% of the time FRs were filling out same data and product selection to create data models and financial solution. To avoid retyping data again and again I designed the feature to save any solution or form as templates. By this FRs could simply reuse data and parameters from templates thus saving rework and time.
Cross product comparison: Previously North Mutual's system did not have the ability to compare its products or to provide a financial solution that is a combination of multiple products. I keyed in the ability to add and compare multiple products in the same form process. The advantages are two fold here
1) FRs can easily compare multiple products and show the advantages to the clients
2 ) Clients can easily see what they benefit from each combination of products (eg) they can understand the benefits of buying a life insurance and term insurance together rather than buying them separately.
Easy to interact UI elements: I also took care to pick out easy to interact user interface elements. I used slider, multi select check boxes, bold and bigger text boxes that are easy for any beginner level user to interact with. "Will the client be easily able to change values and see the resulting changes" was the question to be answered here. Appropriate error validation and alerts message were added to the form controls.
Visual design
- During the visual design phase we concentrated mainly on converting the wireframes in to high quality visuals that conforms to the North Western mutual's brand guidelines.
- In the product comparison pages we wanted the FRs to easily scan across the product. So we created a visual hierarchy and page dividers to facilitate quick scanning.
- We also had some interesting visual exploration for floating sticky layers which the user could use to change parameters after the final render.
Win
Demo
Using clickable prototype we had a demo section with selected FRs and key stakeholders.
After the general walkthrough we had specific question for FRs to understand how they liked the new interface and how much useful the new interface would be for them. The designs were well received over all. The FRs and other sales representatives liked the ability to compare products. The controls that allow users to interact with the illustration was very well received.
