Insurance B2B Platform Usability Study

 

Months after I worked on the redesign of a life insurance company’s B2B platform, the client wanted to assess its usability. The client had added their own design changes to the original design. They were also interested in testing the platform since users were mostly aging professionals who had been working with the previous version of the website for more than a decade.

 
 

I worked as Project Manager and primary UX researcher, working with another UX researcher who helped as notetaker.

I designed and planned the study, moderated the sessions and wrote a full report with actionable recommendations.

 
Usability Test - Desktop
 

Outcomes

The client was able to detect bugs in the system and also plan on changes needed to be integrated in the platform based on the findings.

Client team members, especially those working in IT, were very engaged with the report and recommendations and wanted to take part in observing future usability studies.

 
 
 
 

Goals

  • Assessing the usability of the redesign of a platform whose users had been working with since the early 2000s.

  • The main focus of the study was getting to know if there was a big learning curve for users, and if they preferred the new look-and-feel of the platform.

 
 

UserS

  • 55-65 year-olds professionals working at resellers of life insurance.

  • They were either owners of small family-businesses or had been working at these companies for a long time.

  • They used this platform to look for information about their clients’ insurance policies so they could take action based on this.

 
 

Methodology

  • I designed the usability study, based on research questions formulated by the client.

  • Then, along with another UX team member, we conducted 7 Usability Tests. I acted as the moderator.

  • We printed out every screen to be tested and hanged them on the walls of the observation room. We added findings on post-it notes under each screen after each session. This helped me write the report in a very short amount of time.

 
 
 
Usability Test - Mobile
Notetaking on every screen

Challenges

  • Platform environment: The platform was tested on a live QA environment. As we were testing we found bugs that hindered participants’ task performance. We suggested including the development team in the process, so a developer observed the sessions and fixed bugs as we encountered them.

  • Changes made by the client: The client made some design choices without consulting a UX specialist. Since we didn’t have full access to the new look of the platform before the sessions, we weren’t familiar with them. As new changes appeared on the screen, I asked participants questions around them.

 
 
 

Deliverable

  • A report including findings, video clips, verbatim and actionable recommendations.

    • For example, most participants looked at the keyboard while typing, which made them miss that results were already displayed when searching.

      • We suggested adding a search button and displaying the results after clicking it.

      • We also recommended providing feedback through an animation or message.

  • I presented this report to stakeholders and IT team members of the client’s company.

 
 

Report sample slides

The presented information was modified from the original for privacy purposes.