Responsive design for Kaus Insurance

The goal of this project was to capture the brand expertise cultivated over 30 years of experience in the insurance market to provide a great e-commerce website. Kaus is open to breaking industry barriers in favour of an easier and more accessible experience to everyone. The process of quoting insurance can be quite cumbersome for many people. There are many factors to balance while going through this process, such as the amount of coverage needed and the price factor.

The research goal was to understand what customers value the most when buying insurance online. It was necessary to make the product seem less complex to attract more customers, exploring new ways of categorising and presenting the existing insurance policies. The methodologies used for this project were:

The empathise phase started with secondary and competitive research to understand how the market works, identify the key competitors and types of insurance offered.

I assumed people were generally more interested in the price/benefit factor, which could potentially mean the website traffic would come from insurance comparison sites such as GoCompare or CompareTheMarket. If this was the case, it would be helpful to understand what users value the most when using these services.

User interviews were conducted remotely via Zoom calls to hear stories about users’ past experiences, uncover successes and pain points about searching, quoting and purchasing insurance. While hearing users' stories during the interviews, I noticed they were most of the time driven by cheap prices but they also were very concerned about having peace of mind that their possessions are secured.

According to them, the ideal insurance e-commerce experience would be self-explanatory, transparent, quick to access and easy to do. Some of their pain points are not knowing how to make an insurance claim and having to enter unclear information. They’re also frustrated about reading insurance jargon, and how long quotation forms are, which can leave them with the impression that insurance is more complicated than it is.

By identifying behavioural patterns between the interviewees, I grouped these findings and defined a user persona that projected their goals, fears and pain points.

The secondary and the user interviews results together were an invaluable source of insight, serving as a tool to validate pre-made assumptions. The project goals document also helped to keep an eye on factors that can impact their journey. The overlapping areas on the diagram highlight potential solutions that can serve as a reference point for the next steps of improving Kaus user experience.

When defining the information architecture for this project, an online card sorting study was performed. Kaus has a big range of policy offerings for every situation, personal to business, such as property, motor, liability, health and protection.
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Participants were given 30 different types of insurance to organise as they wish, and then to give these categories a name. Patterns were identified amongst participants with enough data to suggest potential groupings by similarity and recurrence of their answers.

This study was a vital source of information to make it easier for the users to find the content they need, which was one of the main user goals defined during the research phase.

The proposed solution divided the products into 9 global insurance categories. The business category had the biggest number of products, so it was divided into 3 smaller groups to make the navigation easier.

Considering the information gathered so far during the research phase, I had enough information to start creating the user flows. According to the user interviews, I assumed that this particular kind of user would land on the site coming from an insurance comparison site.

Questions like “Is this company trustworthy?” or “Am I making the right decision?” might arise during the process, so it was vital to sketch possible solutions and to be prepared for these scenarios.

It’s important to note that this particular persona is not always completely sold on a specific company and their journey can be quite hectic. The user flow can address some questions the user might have in mind while quoting and applying for an insurance product.

Assuming that users would be more likely to get a quote on a bigger screen, the wireframes were more focused on the desktop breakpoint. The proposed solution prioritises the categories navigation. It was also a good opportunity to annotate. The bullets on the right explain any interactions and links happening on each of the elements.

Moving on to the UI phase, I created a mood board for this project, aiming at words like fresh, easy, friendly and transparent for the brand. Kaus is open to breaking industry barriers in favour of an easier experience. They also have the right value proposition built around trust and transparency. Lastly, insurance is made for people. It’s necessary to reinforce friendliness and to remain approachable so users can grow their trust around the brand.

This is reflected in the brand identity, which is playful and makes the brand symbol more humanised with features like eyes and mouth. The same goes with the imagery, which consists of warmer tones and focuses on people rather than objects.

The UI Kit created for this project is a comprehensive list of elements in various states and layout breakpoints. Designing for inclusion was also a major part of this project. The typography size ensures the content can be read comfortably, making the content accessible for everyone.

To validate the work done so far, I have conducted a series of usability tests with potential users to test how easily they can find the products they need. Using a Zoom call, participants screen shared the clickable prototype. The study was useful to capture the participants’ feedback and to spot potential problems that users could face when the site goes live.

The participants were overall happy with the navigation and were able to complete the core tasks successfully. Some ambiguities on the button labels and the lack of information were also fixed on the final prototype. Considering the time available, a feature matrix made it easier to prioritise what should be fixed first.

The proposed solution can address many of the users’ concerns and pain points identified during the research phase. It was interesting to see that many additional user needs and pain points can appear during the usability testing, which wasn’t necessarily mapped during the research phase. This was useful for me to approach UX more iteratively in the future, without going too far away with potential ideas without getting feedback from potential users.

It was challenging to design without a very specific niche in mind, as the products provided can meet the needs of both personal and business audiences. However, sticking to the brand promise of making insurance easy helped me back my decisions for the overall brand look and feel. Considering that some of the insurance products are very complex and aimed at a specific niche (for example cyber insurance or even dental insurance) I would love to explore more in-depth the requirements and specific details of each of the products offered and their quoting process, so I could sketch and test different solutions with users for each of these scenarios.