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SOLARIA LABS

 • UX RESEARCH & STRATEGY FOR SMALL BUSINESS INSURANCE •

Solaria Labs, the internal innovation hub for Liberty Mutual Insurance, contracted Mad*Pow to help them bring a new line of insurance products to market. I served as the UX Strategist for developing the user experience for the new small business insurance offering. 

 

My Role:

  • Interview and observe 12 participants' experience shopping for small business insurance online.

  • Analyze research to identify user behaviors, needs, pain points, and innovation opportunities.

  • Design new UX journey and behavior-based personas.

PROJECTBACKGROUND

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Selecting small business insurance is a complex process that involves correctly answering dozens of nuanced and legally binding questions.

 

As such, it was considered a task that could only be handled by a licensed insurance agent. However, Liberty Mutual was under pressure from competitors to develop an simple, self-serve option that users could complete entirely online with no agent guidance.

 

I worked in conjunction with a user researcher to identify key personas, analyze competitors online shopping experience, and finally to create a journey map of the ideal customer experience and UX design specifications.

METHODOLOGY

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  • Developed provisional personas based on client's previous research

  • Recruited a small group of participants (12) that matched provisional personas and had a spectrum of business needs

  • Interviewed and observed participants' experience while shopping for small business insurance online

  • Analyzed research findings and revised personas based on findings

  • Analyzed delights and frustrations of the current online shopping experience

  • Synthesized of ideal journey based on persona needs, participants’ customer journeys, and competitors' existing product offerings

We analyzed the current user experience across six competitor sites. From this we identified overarching user behaviors, needs, pain points, and opportunities to delight.

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These insights combined with interviews with participants and Liberty Mutual institutional expertise were used to create behavioral personas.

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I then synthesized these findings into a high-level ideal user experience.

 

The journey was anchored in the visual analogy of a subway line that had an express and a local train. The express moved quickly and served users who had already gone through the small business purchasing experience. The local had more stops and helpful features to provide a guided experience for first time users.

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Each 'station' featured three types of information: the user goals at that stage, the input requirements for the website to ensure correct product selection, and a list of most effective  ways to achieve these based on  successful features of competitor sites, as well analogous online shopping experiences.

The journey and accompanying assets were used to set strategic objectives for the subsequent UX design and build phase.

©2024 by Crystal June Rome

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