Innovation: Digitising insurance for Turners Cars.
Background and context:
Turners Cars dominates the automotive industry in New Zealand, selling over 10% of used vehicles.
Their existing insurance division lacks product information and quote options on their website. Our design solution aimed to create a seamless pathway for customers to easily find and purchase a car insurance policy, suitable to their needs.
The GIF below shows our final product, delivered within four weeks.
My role:
This was a group project, but I was responsible for:
Empathy Maps
Customer journey map
Persona
Problem statement
Revised user flow
Information architecture
Usability testing
High-fidelity wireframes
My team:
Vasuda Mistry
Olivier Jeannin
Kafolau Tila (Developer)
Frederick Hy (Developer)
Stakeholders:
The following have a vested interest in the product outcome:
Turners management and digital team
Users: Customers of varying ages purchasing cars and those interested in or attending auctions
Design process:
My team and I were involved in all stages of the Design Thinking process, because we had to deliver a design solution at the end of our given time (four weeks).
Project scope:
My team and I had four weeks to deliver a high-fidelity prototype that included pathways for a car policy quote and insurance purchase. We needed to carry out the following tasks, in addition to my role above:
Define:
i) Conduct a brief competitive analysis of similar websites
ii) Create user stories based on ‘discovery’ research
Ideate:
i) Produce sketches and low-fidelity wireframes
ii) Create revised user flows
Prototype: Hand-off final designs to developers
Empathy maps:
We wanted to better understand how users felt about the Turners Cars website, what the issues were and why, so we conducted user interviews. I organised my notes and created empathy maps - this is one of two that I created.
Click here to see both empathy maps and key insights from our user interviews.
Customer journey map:
I explored the Turners website myself, and documented my processes carefully into the customer journey map below.
This was done to identify:
How users arrived at the website
Their emotions at each stage of the process, and
Where they encounter pain points.
Problem statement:
Turners customers struggle to find insurance information and obtain quotes online, leading to overload, frustration, and time wasted scrolling. Calling Turners for information strains staff and risks customer retention, impacting reputation and revenue. Fatigue and distraction hinder insurance purchase, potentially leading to abandonment.
Persona:
I developed one persona to capture a potential user’s needs, motivations and frustrations, to have a deeper understanding of their thoughts and engagement with our product.
Revised user flow:
After analysing the existing user flow, I produced many iterations of the following revised user flow, focussing on simplicity; but also considering the problem statement and ideas generated from team brainstorming.
Click here to view our brainstorming session notes and existing user flow.
Information architecture:
I aimed to simplify the information architecture of top navigation and the FAQ section, addressing disorganisation and inefficiency. Collaboration and discussion guided the rearrangement of cards for improved usability.
Click here to see information architecture for the FAQs section.
Usability testing:
We carried out two rounds of usability testing with five participants, to validate our designs against user needs. Analysis of our findings validated some decisions but highlighted areas requiring immediate adjustments. We needed to add further questions to our second round of testing, to check that our FAQs section was easy locate and use.
Using Jakob Nielsen's Severity Scale, pain points were given a rating of 1-4 and led to iterations of our low-fidelity wireframes. Analysing our findings this way led to targeted design improvements based on the impact they had on usability.
A few key findings from both rounds of testing:
Some of the button labels were unclear in meaning
Information about different policies and prices needed to be clearer
The form for completing an insurance quote was too long
Click here to see further details of our testing and changes made.
High-fidelity wireframes:
I used our MVP and test findings to produce a high-fidelity prototype, which maintained consistency with the Turners brand and applied the Gestalt Principles of Design.
Click here to see our MVP and my high-fidelity wireframes.
Project outcome:
My team and I managed to complete all stages of design thinking and managed to:
Create clear, new pathways for users to generate quotes and buy insurance without having to call Turners Cars
Improve usability of our MVP - following our second round of testing, all severity ratings had been reduced to ‘1’
Simplify designs and information architecture
Communication
Regular communication ensured strong teamwork, fostered deep discussions and prevented duplication of work. At the start of our project, I’d forgotton to mention aspects of our work I completed - this led to minor inconsistencies in our work. Moving forward, it would be best to record changes and additions made as I go, so that all details are relayed during group meetings.
Test early
Despite successful completion of both usability testing rounds, the second round fell slightly behind schedule due to insufficient participants. To avoid future delays, participants will be contacted earlier, enabling more flexibility and timely testing before the high-fidelity prototype stage.