Answer Financial
Shopping for home insurance is a long and arduous process, between finding the best deal and spending hours filling personal information into lengthy forms to see which plans you qualify for. I conducted user research and defined the interaction design to improve the user experience of home insurance shopping on Answer Financial’s website, which aggregates and compares the prices of insurance plans to offer their customers the best deal.
Research
User Interviews and Surveys
I conducted 10 user interviews on homeowners who had purchased insurance in the past year to investigate how level of shopping experience affected users’ behaviors, identify their tools and pain points during their home insurance shopping experiences, and gather their impressions of existing home insurance quote websites. To complement these findings, I collaborated with a strategist to conduct an online survey which received 313 responses to learn more about our target users’ attitudes and preferences. To ensure that our research facilitated the fulfillment of business objectives, I centered questions around user behaviors and attitudes regarding each stage of the conversion funnel displayed below.
User Behaviors
Home insurance purchasers experienced cognitive dissonance when making purchases. They were disinterested and wanted to get the purchase done quickly, yet anxious about making the wrong decision. They felt that they should do more research to get the best deal, but their reluctance to follow through caused feelings of uncertainty. They also trusted disruptors with quality reviews and a high-grade user experience over an established leader. I outlined the various user behaviors and dimensions based on their home insurance shopping experience.
User Stories
I turned my research findings into user stories such as the ones below to ensure that each design feature solved real user needs:
- I want to see authentic, uncensored reviews so I can trust Answer Financial enough to start the quote process
- I want to see carrier logo images so I know which company’s insurance plans will be available in the comparison tool
- I want forms to autosuggest where possible so I don’t need to manually type my full answer
- I want to go back and edit information I previously filled out so I can correct any mistakes I have made
- I want to see a progress bar so I can see how much more information I need to fill and stay motivated
Competitive Audit
I conducted a competitive audit to observe the features, market positioning, interactions, UI, strengths, and weaknesses of competitors.
Flows
Since the form-filling process involved multiple steps and conditionals, I created user flows to ensure that the designs efficiently facilitated the actions required to fulfill the users’ goals.
Interaction Design
We initially received 105 questions to define which home insurance plans best suited users. Since this would be too labor intensive for the user, we worked closely with our client to define which questions were essential and trimmed down the majority of questions. This allowed us to provide maximum results quickly, a driving deciding factor for users to engage in the quote process. I categorized each question type and devised UI systems and interactions for them, such as multichoice, dropdowns, open fields, and conditional questions. The multi-choice format worked especially well for questions with a smaller number of answers, as they increased visibility and offered an opportunity for us to integrate images that improved comprehension and aesthetics, while the dropdown format maintained clean, efficient simplicity when a large number of answers were involved. I also outlined error conditions, error types, and tool tips to clarify any ambiguous questions. We devised a card system that divided questions into digestible chunks, implemented a progress bar to maintain motivation and a sense of achievement, and provided instant feedback throughout the form filling process to put users at ease.
Usability Test
We created desktop and mobile prototypes from the wireframes and I planned and executed an in-person moderated problem discovery usability test on 7 home owners who had bought home insurance in the past year. I alternated the order in which participants walked through mobile and desktop prototypes to compensate for perceived intuitiveness affected by familiarity, and the format revolved around observing users thinking aloud while performing predesignated tasks, followed by follow-up questions pertaining to their actions. I created this results spreadsheet to quickly communicate findings and iterate improvements internally.
Mockups
Our visual design team created mockups and implemented a modernized approach Answer Financial’s branding. I provided feedback throughout the process to ensure that the visual treatment was intuitive to users and complemented the interaction design and our research findings.
