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Case study by Ralitsa Holub





Improving Holub Insurance Desktop and Mobile Web Page


Holub Insurance Agency Web Page

OVERVIEW





Holub Insurance Agency is a small insurance agency in Wichita Falls, TX (a mid-sized city in northern Texas). I was assigned to improve their website www.HolubInsuranceAgency.com and online presence to help them be more competitive with more prominent insurance companies. In my case study, I wanted to learn what makes a small Insurance agency competitive and how to create their image to convey trustworthiness.


I first conducted an interview with the owner to determine his needs. I then interviewed two of their clients to determine the underlying issues with Holub Insurance’s online presence. I also conducted a survey and competitive analysis of larger insurance agencies’ webpages. This helped me define the problem: Holub Insurance’s website and image needed a redesign and new features integrated. Finally, I created a clean-design concept website and integrated an automated quote form that was convenient and accessible. My target audience is all working professionals over 18 who are eligible to buy insurance. I then conducted a usability study and iterated my design.



ROLES





Ralitsa Holub Researcher,

UX Designer

Graphic Designer


Bryant Holub

CEO


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Research and Discovery



The entry interview with the owner



Before I started working on this project, I wanted to conduct an entry interview with Holub Insurance Agency’s owner to determine his business goals and the needs of his target audience and find any other information that would be helpful.


Bryant Holub - Owner of Holub Insurance Agency






During the interview, Holub Insurance Agency’s owner stated that he wants a more functional and appealing website to be more competitive in the market. He didn’t know much about what people think of his current website, but he said that the most common things people were looking for on insurance websites are filing claims, receiving quotes, changing policies, and making payments. Since his leading partner is Germania Insurance, he often needs to send his clients external links to accomplish this. He also stated that he preferred a darker-colored design scheme.



After summarizing the findings of the interview with the owner and some ideation and visualization, I was able to determine that four essential sections for the web site will be “Claims,” “Quotes,” “Change Policy,” and “Make a Payment” so customer needs are satisfied. In addition, I was able to determine that the owner of Holub Insurance Agency wants a web page that looks like or mimics the features of the big competitors’ web pages.



I felt I would need more information before I finalized my ideas to innovate the existing web page design. I wanted to meet with a few Holub Insurance customers and hear their perspectives about the experience they have with the Holub Insurance Agency’s current web page. Because of the owner’s desire to be more competitive with big insurance agencies, I decided to conduct a competitive analysis of their current web page designs. In my competitive analysis, I searched to answer this question: what is the most common element all large insurance companies have on their web page and why?





Interview with two Holub Insurance Agency Clients





The owner of Holub Insurance Agency connected me with two of his regular clients, and I conducted a phone interview with each of them. Both of them mainly interacted with Holub Insurance Agency either in person or over the phone.





The first customer was a 48-year-old Elementary School Teacher who has spent her whole life in Wichita Falls. She said that she initially found the insurance agency through a reference from a family member. She found the address through Google and got her quote on-site. She shared that she was not able to see what she was looking for on the Holub Insurance web page, and when I asked her about it, she said:


“The website was confusing and inconvenient; I’d rather speak to a person to get a quote.”


She did not question the professionalism of the Holub Insurance agents. She was satisfied with the integrity of the people who served her and only had negative comments about the web page.


The second customer was a 32-year-old Library Associate who has only been in Wichita Falls for three years. She found the insurance agency through Google and got her quote over the phone. She believed that the design of the current web page is a “ little busy.” After we spoke about her opinion of the web page, she shared:


“It takes too long anytime I want to make changes to my insurance, and I’m uncomfortable giving my information online.”


After I conducted the interview, I was convinced that, on the whole, customers are satisfied with the service of Holub Insurance Agency. Still, they wish they had a more functional website.


After speaking to the second customer, I felt that it is vital to my project to understand how important is the quick response and quote-taking process to the average insurance user. The lady was the type of customer that believed that it is safer to provide personal information in-person, and she would rather do that than submit her personal information online. I wondered what percentage of average users will rather take their quote online than in person. For that purpose, I conducted a user survey.





User Survey






To qualify, a user needs to be over 18 and requires some form of insurance (except for health insurance). Because of the small research budget, I advertised my survey on my local network among my Facebook friends and classmates. I sought only 20 responses due to time constraints. These are the two most important questions and results of my survey:


Would you prefer to get your insurance quote from a person or online?





What do you find is the most unpleasant part of getting a quote online?





After analyzing the survey results, I found that most average insurance users prefer to get their quotes online and that the most significant pain point for the average user was the amount of time it takes for people to get quotes and submit their information. I wondered how other insurance agencies were conducting their user interaction and dealing with those pain points, so I went to several Insurance agencies’ web pages to search the most common element in their web design.


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competitive Analysis




I found out that every large insurance agency had a call-to-action button that was available on their web page to collect people’s information and give them a quote. In contrast, Holub Insurance Agency’s website did not have that common element. In addition, the design complemented that by providing less distraction and, in some cases, was the only written information on the start screen.


Quote form presence on the front screen analysis :





Competitive analyses on current web page design and web design on competitors





SWOT Analysis of Holub Insurance UX/UI





Visual design comparison :





After conducting my research, I was able clearly to define the problem with the Holub Insurance web page.


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problem



Holub Insurance’s website and image needed a redesign and new features integrated.


What was missing from the current web page?


  1. “Quick-to-fill” quote form
  2. Easy to navigate Layout
  3. Minimalistic as possible design
  4. Passing accessibility requirements.


Now knowing all of this information, I had the idea of how to improve the Holub Insurance Web page:





Personal Pain Points



1. Payments and Claims need to be done externally from the Holub Insurance Web page.


2. Designing the form was not easy and had many variables that required me searching an outsourced solution: Typeform.com, which can be embedded in the current web page.






Information Architecture



I chose my ideas for the current project because of accessibility at the forefront of my mind.


The most important feature on the redesigned web page will be the quote and the integrated type form. After conducting competitive analyses, I learned that every insurance agency starts the conversation with a quote on their web pages. It is crucial for Holub Insurance to develop a form for collecting data, and to work toward business automation.


Knowing my solution, I need to empathize with my target audience and users to create a successful online product. I had a good idea of my average user:






Solution





Holub Insurance’s website and image needed a redesign and new features integrated.


I came up with this solution:


I needed to design:

  • “Quick-to-fill” quote form
  • Easy to navigate Layout
  • Minimalistic as possible design
  • Test my accessibility and create a guide.


Why I chose this solution?


I choose my ideas for the current project because e I believe it is helping accessibility. The most important feature on the redesigned web page will be the quote and the integrated type form. After conducted competitive analyses I learned that every insurance agency starts the conversation with a quote on their web pages. It is crucial for Holub Insurance to develop a form for Collecting data and work toward business automation. Now knowing my solution I need to empathize with my target audience and users in order to create a successful online product. I had a good idea of my average user:



target audience





  • Individuals over 18
  • Eligible to buy insurance
  • All genders
  • Primarily working professionals

Target audience: In this case, our audience is a broad spectrum of individuals who are over 18, who are eligible to buy some of the following insurance: Auto, Home, Life, Flooding, Business, RV, Motorcycle, Boat, and others. Our audience is consistent of all genders and primarily working professionals such as doctors, construction workers, teachers, librarians, entrepreneurs, etc. Thinking of my audience inspire me visualizing my personas:



Persona: Emily Baron





PERSONA: don carter





more deliverables

wire frames, journey map, storyboard, empathy map, user flow, ideas, notes, skatches, crazy 8ths, prototype



If you want to see the detailed file please click on the picture of the deliverable of your interest and you will be navigated to the external web page you can do that.

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Visual design comparison



Journey Map



Visual design comparison



Empathy Map



Story Board



Notes/ Ideas/ Crazy 8's



User Flow



Wireframes /Paper Prototype



Final Ideas





User Flow



Once a mental model was created, I developed the user flow for the site.


I designed a very detailed and comprehensive user flow that describes each action the user can take on the site. Unfortunately, this makes the user flow too big to fit on this page, so I am displaying a few small sections and linking to the full user flow here.


Using the user flow, I was now ready to start the design process beginning with the wireframe sketches. Sketches I began with a simple idea.


Sketches


I began with a simple idea.


This preliminary brainstorming led to more organized thought processes in the form of Crazy 8’s.

I then settled on a style and planned my prototype.

And finally, I created a sketch of the wireframe. Once I had a paper prototype, I used it to develop digital wireframes.






Clickable Prototype on Figma

Digital Wire Frames








Once I had a paper prototype, I used it to develop wireframes. I then conducted usability testing on the wireframes.


Wireframe Usability Test


In this user test, I used five participants. I used a Miro graph to organize the questions and the findings.

https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lUgDBJ4=/



Tools:

  1. Phone with camera for behavior research
  2. Timer Computer
  3. Testing website (https://maze.co/#kkree3f3e2-)
  4. Google Docs for recording results


Participants:

  1. 36 years old male
  2. 18 years old male
  3. 24 years old female
  4. 18 years old female
  5. 33 years old female


For this test, I sent my participants to Maze. This was intended to learn if the information on the Holub Insurance Agency website is visible and easy to access.


After the user testing, two participants were unable to locate Claims and Policy Changes. As a result, I went back and iterated the design by adding those to the top of the main menu.


Once the wireframe structure was finalized, I was able to begin brand development.

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Brand Characteristics



I wanted the brand to reflect not just the company, but the owner himself. His last name, Holub, happens to be Czech for “pigeon”. This led me to the creation of the vectorized bird logo as well as establishing the color scheme through research in both accessibility and the idea of what it would look like if a bird was looking at the website.





Mood Board


I began by researching how a pigeon sees the world.

This led to my discovery of “bird vision”.





I then took this color scheme and began trying to look at the world the way a pigeon would.





Color Palette:


I chose the colors for the Holub Insurance Agency website based on accessibility as well as the research I did on “bird vision”: violet, red, and greyscale.


These are the colors I settled on:





I chose to remove the violet spectrum from the “bird vision” as humans do not actually physically perceive violet and therefore the removal of that spectrum would improve accessibility.


Typography


I chose the Times New Roman Bold and Proxima Nova fonts in the 16 pt and 14 pt sizes to help ensure accessibility.


Logo Design


When I designed the vectorized bird logo it was a very unusual process. The client loved the very first iteration I presented to him and therefore we did not need any additional iterations!





Multiple iterations of the website’s visual design as a whole were not necessary prior to usability testing because I tested only the functionality of the wireframes.​





Accessibility Guide




I implemented changes in my design to help increase accessibility for people with the following conditions:


Color Blindness


Used only one main color(red) in addition to the black white and grayscale. In that case, only people with a lack of red retina cone will have a different perception of the design. Since hierarchy is not established through color, color blind people in the red scale won’t be confused but they will see design as green. Blue and green color blindness won't be affected since those colors are not present in the design.


Impaired Hearing


Added Chatbot to the functionality that will create an easy way of communications with Insurance agents without the need for phone interaction.






Dyslexia


One page layout and one main color plus good space between elements (meant to reduce confusion)


Impaired Sight


The added text description to all, not text design elements, Size font of at least 14 pt,

Contrast Accessibility Check /https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/





usability testing




Once the website was built, I was able to undergo user testing of the site.


The main test was on the quote form. I tested to see which quote form style was most efficient for data gathering purposes.


I created a questionnaire in both the Wix Form -which is a multi-field layout- and the Type Form -which is a single field layout.


Wix Form Example :





Type Form Example:.







I used a camera and timer to record how the participants interacted with the two different layouts. I did this research on two separate days in order to keep the users from being influenced by the other interaction.


I used generic questions as this was not an attempt to collect personal data, but rather to evaluate the efficiency of each form layout.


The questions were as follows:

  1. What is your favorite color?
  2. What is your favorite animal?
  3. What is your favorite food?
  4. Who is your best friend?
  5. What is your favorite TV show?
  6. What is your favorite band?
  7. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
  8. What did you have for breakfast?
  9. What is your shoe size?
  10. What color is your hair?


Findings:





In the end, each user was able to complete the Type Form (one field) much faster than the Wix Form (multi-field) layout.


Iterations


Originally, the website looked approximately like this:



Before iterations







After analyzing the data I gathered from usability testing, I made the following changes:


After the user testing, two participants were unable to locate Claims and Policy Changes. As a result, I went back and iterated the design by adding those to the top of the main menu.






after iterations





Currently, due to the requirements of the project, I am still in the process of designing the high-fidelity prototype. However, I have begun the development of the design:


Web Version:





Mobile Web Page Version:





Final Thoughts:


Through the process of improving the online presence of Holub Insurance Agency, I learned a lot of insights into the insurance business and how customers interact with its platforms.


I learned the importance of processing data quickly, and how to avoid pain points in the user experience.


I believe I am much more competent now to represent insurance agencies.


What’s Next?


At this point, I will finalize the project for Holub Insurance Agency by designing the final web and mobile page.


I then plan to continue conducting research to see what impact on the business my changes have made, and conclude if any further iterations will be necessary.



Final Design Update 06/15/2021

New Design www.HolubInsuranceAgency.com



Thank you for your time and consideration,

Ralitsa Holub UX Designer

ralitsa.holub@gmail.com


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Ralitsa Holub - Dreamer



I know the direction




ralitsa@networkdreamer.net