hoken

The Problem

A few months ago I had to purchase my own health insurance. The process was really frustrating. There were two separate pages for payment input, customer service had a hard time locating my payment details because of this, and the doctors provided on the website were not updated according to my selections (meaning I chose my insurance based on the doctors I wanted, to then find out after registering with the insurance company that my doctors are not in-network with them). So now I am left with paying an insurance company that I don't use and don't trust because I was given the wrong information.

The Solution

Fueled by frustration and creativity, I built a digital product (Hoken) that makes a complicated subject matter like insurance into an easy method for young adults to purchase insurance.

What Were the Obstacles?

Insurance is a domain I knew nothing about. I knew I wanted to make the process simple, but first I needed to understand it. I only had the internet to help with that. So how exactly did I manage? Keep reading for more.

Knowing the Audience & Business

I started the project hoping to understand what makes young adults choose and stick with an insurance company. I initially started with focusing on how to make an insurance page "look cool" to attract young adults. However, that line of thinking has taught me to not focus on the solution first, but rather put more emphasis on research. I focused on how young adults interact with their insurance companies, what young adults think about insurance companies in general, and what were their goals, and pain points.

Secondary Research

In order to dive deep into this I needed to understand the domain of insurance, how this industry works, and the recent trends.

Here are the key insights from my secondary research:

• Digital & Humans: Options for support (online and phone) and having multiple ways to pay (online and phone) is important for different problem solving styles.
• Choice: Customers like to pay for products feeling it was developed for them.
• Branding: Sponsorship in public events and design increases company image.
• Digital: Insurance industry is going digital (digital insurance cards, applications, support, AI agents).
• New Customers: Bread and butter is retaining customers while iterating and simplifying design to bring new customers to gain market share.

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To better understand this problem, I conducted a competitive analysis. I chose a few insurance companies and took note of their strengths and weakness while trying to find inspiration among existing products.

My competitive analyses findings include:

• Product Over User: Digital products from insurance companies focus on the products they offer instead of what the product means for the user's long-term experience.
• Confusing: Digital products from insurance companies make no effort to help the young generation understand what they are paying for and what specific insurance terminology means.
• Too Robotic: Most of the digital products from insurance companies are too robotic, their pages aren't humanized to interact with humans who will be paying thousands of dollars a year to make them feel safe.

The results motivated me to:

• Focus on young adults using interviews to learn about their experience, goals, and pain points about insurance.
• Use the interviews to help drive the design and architecture of Hoken.
• Build and design an insurance product for humans while making a confusing subject matter simple.

To gain a better understanding of young adults' goals, needs, and pain points related to insurance, I conducted one on one interviews with five policyholders ranging from age 21 to 45.

• What is a positive experience when selecting/dealing with insurance?
• What is a negative experience when selecting/dealing with insurance?
• What makes a young user consider insurance?
• What level of risk a young user is willing to take when selecting insurance?
• What activities are young adults involved in that are considered risky?

View Research Plan in Notion

Key Takeaways

What I found was surprising. People's responses kind of fell into two categories. In short, they are out to rob you and they don't care about you.

View Research Debrief in Notion

• Save Time: Young adults like to resolve problems online to avoid talking to agents.
• Bad Overall Sentiment: Young adults think that insurance companies do not have their best intentions in mind. They are hard to trust.
• Confusing: Young adults do not know what they are paying for. They are confused by insurance terminology.
• Security: Young adults pay for insurance for peace of mind to know they are covered for lives surprises.

"It's almost as if they are trying to make you confused."

As a UX Designer, I know I am not designing a product for myself. I need to keep other users in mind. After conducting the research and the interviews, I had enough data to know the insurance product I was going to create and for whom. Users prioritize an insurance product that is easy to use, navigate, that is "with the times", and understand (enough where users know where their money is going).

After reviewing and summarizing the interview results, I created a persona to help guide my design. After creating my persona, this guided me to create the Site Map, User Flow, and Task Flow for my insurance product.

After the card sorting activity, I went through a couple of iterations in my sitemap and user task flow after creating my mid-fidelity design. When I created my mid-fidelity design, I noticed some process improvements. This forced me to redo my site map and user flow. At the end of the day, Hoken's priority is to make the quoting process as easy as possible while helping customers understand what they are getting within their coverage plans.

Designing a Soul

After sorting out my user flow and task flow, it was easier to create Hoken's design. I was able to figure out the Low-Fi wireframes, Mid-Fi wireframes, brand identity, UI kit, and Hi-Fi wireframes.

Digital Sketches

I wanted to have alternatives when choosing a design based on the general research and architecture analyzed since most of my users shopped online for insurance using their desktop. Drawing digital sketches helped me analyze the pros and cons of each design while possibly combining elements of a design.

After selecting one of my alternatives, I created a mid-fidelity design. The wireframes included a Homepage, Pet General Page, Pet Information Form, Pet Owner Information Form, Coverage Page, Checkout Page, and Payment Success Page. I made sure that my mid-fi designs could be easily scaleable.

I wanted to let users know that they would be "okay" selecting Hoken as their insurance provider. There were many variables I wanted to include to depict this. For example, I chose a sans serif typeface to instill security, calm, and trust. To take it a step further, I chose the blue color as Hoken's primary color. Color theory states that the color blue instills feelings of calm, security, and trust. To let current and potential policyholders know that they were going to be "okay", I put a smiley symbol under the letter "o" and "k" as Hoken's brand design.

When designing, there was one thing I was not aware of. Designing one problem to solve one can sometimes lead to the creation of another problem. I am a very visual person, and I was able to see problems such as the product being cluttered and having too many CTA buttons when the colors were brought to life from mid-fi to hi-fi. I went through many iterations, my mid-fi looks nothing like my hi-fi after creating my mood board and UI Kit. There was one thing I wanted to keep true to Hoken, it was their design language, typography, and brand values.

Users mentioned how they found insurance confusing, so I designed an Insurance Dictionary card so users can look up insurance terminology. They also mentioned how insurance companies had no soul. So I gave Hoken soul by displaying the fact that they give their leftover money to charities. Below is version 1 of Hoken's design.

Testing the Details

A remote usability testing was conducted using a high-fidelity prototype design on Figma. The reason for this test was to examine the flow of design, ease of navigation, and the extent to which design reflects the values of the brand. This test also tries to view and understand users' pain points, goals, and recommendations. The test was conducted with five participants via remote video calls. The Otter AI application was used to transcribe the dialogue live to pick out keywords used to analyze and compare with other participants.

The goals for the usability testing:

• To test the end-to-end flow of the design and ease of navigation.
• To see if the overall look of the website reflects the brand's values.
• To validate if the design solves the user's needs and pain points that were captured during the research phase.
• To observe any areas of setbacks, questions, confusion, hesitation, or difficulty for the user.

View Usability Test Planning

Usability Testing Summary

The usability testing and the prototype were a success. Overall, the participants were able to complete the tasks in a timely manner and enjoyed the flow of the site, design, and navigation.

View Usability Test Findings in Notion

"I wish Geico were this easy."

With the feedback provided, I made the necessary changes for Hoken's Version 2 Design with an updated prototype.

A Time to Reflect

I took the time to reflect on what it entailed to create and design an insurance product from scratch.

My Biggest Challenges

There were a few challenges I had to truck my way through while designing an insurance product:

• Scanning for Inspiration: I have reviewed many insurance products and even went through their checkout process. I noticed there are many ways to design an insurance product and flow. Often times it was difficult to tell which was the easiest way or which insurance product had it "right". Maybe there isn't a "right" or "wrong" way". But sifting through so many design and workflows was sometimes overwhelming.
• Iterating: I have lost count how many times I have iterated my design and research methodology. Just when you think you got it right, there's always that one extra way on how you can improve a certain step.
• My UX Mentor: There were moments when we agreed and disagreed in some of the design decisions for this insurance product. I learned a little bit of everything. I learned when to accept design decisions, when to push back on design decisions, and the general process of give and take (feedback, designs, and processes). I found myself having moments of learning a ton and moments of feeling frustrated. Not to say that any of this is bad, but it's a taste of balancing what the real world experience will be like while also trying to having fun with the process.

What I Learned

I learned that designing for insurance is not easy, but if a human-centered approach is taken when designing, it is possible to create a complicated product in a complicated industry into an easy, clear, and concise design:

• Do Not Get Attached to a Specific Design: This is something I had a hard time letting go. I think it's because, on a human level, I put a lot of my emotion and thought process into my creative work and design.
• Iterating: I have lost count how many times I have iterated my design and research methodology. Just when you think you got it right, there's always that one extra way on how you can improve a certain step.
• Domain Knowledge: To design a specific industry, knowing the business is a must. There is a lot of variables at play when designing a product, especially as big as insurance.
• Efficiency in Figma: Knowing how to create variants, interactions, and components on the fly has really helped me complete my design iterations fast. Knowing the ins and outs of a tool is imperative for good and fast design.
• Have a Flow: Similar to a design system, I realized having a personal design system (or a structure) helps when starting and ending the lifecycle of a design in UX. I was able to get through specific phases a lot cleaner and quicker.

Next Steps

With that being said, the next steps of this design process would be:

• Test Priority Revisions: Conduct another usability testing to see if the revisions improved the overall experience.
• Iterate & Test: If necessary, iterate and testing to be conducted for other potential improvements.
• Developer Handoff: Export projects and assets to developers to deploy.