Portfolio | E-commerce: Car Insurance

The Process

Illustrated below is the approach I used for this project, with some details omitted for confidentiality.

01 – Understand

One of the key topics I focussed on when doing my BA Honours in Integrated Organisational Communication, was consumer behaviour. Therefore, studying the consumer behaviour of buying car insurance, was an apparent starting point for me.

Consumer behaviour is the processes prospects undergo when evaluating, selecting and purchasing goods or services.
Belch & Belch 2009. Advertising and promotion, in An integrated marketing Communication Perspective

The consumer behaviour of buying car insurance can be described as a complex purchase journey. Consumers employ a rigorous process to ensure they are buying the best insurance plan, that won’t have unpleasant surprises in the event of claiming.

For a consumer to make an informed purchase decision and successfully buy car insurance on the Budget Insurance website, the end-to-end sales flow had to be improved, to ensure that it is efficient, intuitive and easy to use.

Desired outcome
The business objective for this brief was to increase the online sales for car insurance.

02 – Research

My research consisted out of the following:

Conducted an expert review:

  • To identify pain points and areas of improvement on the existing ‘buy insurance online’ flow

Conducted a competitor analysis:

  • Analysis on South African car insurance brands, to identify what they are doing and not doing well

Created a task flow diagram of the existing flow:

  • To get a bigger picture of the navigation
  • Identify interrelationships and dependencies between the different sections of the flow.

Going through existing data from the UX Research team:

  • Market research
  • Target market and customers
  • Most insured car details
  • Previous usability test screen recordings
  • Heatmap analysis: drop-offs, time on page, scroll depth and click tracking

03 – Analysis

Following the abovementioned research, I conducted sessions aimed at information architecture and determining an appropriate end-to-end sales flow, using the below methods:

  • Task prioritisation 
  • Open card sorting
  • User profile
  • Task profile
  • Environmental profile
  • Personas and scenarios

04 – Design

In a bi-weekly meeting with business stakeholders, I presented low-fidelity designs to gain buy-in. Initially, some stakeholders struggled to engage with the low-fidelity designs due to a lack of UX and design understanding, so I transitioned to mid-fidelity designs to facilitate clearer feedback. Once approved, I began prototyping in Axure, despite it being my first time using the tool. Determined to master it, I focused on building a high-quality prototype for usability testing.

Axure proved to be highly beneficial, offering dynamic interactions, conditional logic for setting interactions, and the ability to create fully functional prototypes more efficiently than other tools I had used. It also allowed for exporting to Adobe XD and producing high-fidelity designs. As the mid-fidelity designs evolved, I worked on implementing the high-fidelity screens to refine the final product.

05 – Usability Testing

Formative usability testing was done on every mid-fidelity design iteration, before high-fidelity designs were created.

These tests were remote and moderated:

  • Expectancy test: to evaluate the mental model of the users
  • Performance test: to evaluate how users would navigate the flow

06 – Implement

As soon as the design objectives are met, and design decisions are validated. Files are handed over to developers.

I worked in an agile environment, in a cross-functional team. The scrum ceremonies enabled the successful implementation of this end-to-end sales flow.

07 – Usability Testing

Once the end-to-end sales flow, went live, a free exploration – summative usability test was conducted to evaluate the actual usage of the platform and validate if the intended goal was achieved.

The above was followed up by, constant monitoring and tracking:

  • Conversion rates
  • Drop-off rates
  • Time spent on page
  • Scroll depth
  • Click through rates

 

In conclusion, sales conversation improved, completing the task was faster and customers became comfortable with making such an important purchase all by themselves, using the online platform.

View other portfolio projects

01

Mentorship
Platform

02

Showmax:
Expert Review

03

A/B
Testing