Transamerica

Roles: Lead Experience Designer, Lead Strategist

Transamerica.com was in need of a serious refresh. It was desktop-only and had seven different log-in screens. SSO wasn’t in use, so customers and financial planners had to log-in multiple times in a single session to view multiple accounts. For potential customers, the site organization was confusing and disorienting and, in many instances led to dead ends or outdated content. It was challenging for customers to get a clear view of all that Transamerica had to offer. Our goal was to create consistency, clarity and simplicity for all user types.

Discovery + Experience Recommendation

When I arrived, leadership wanted to jump into a redesign and the UI team was ready to start on concepts. We were able to convince the team to pause until I could complete foundational research (heuristic analysis, competitive audit, market research, industry trends, stakeholder interviews, user interviews), while collaborating with SEO, analytics and business leads to gather findings from potential and existing customers, stakeholders and financial planners. I then synthesized the findings to create a clear set of recommendations and next steps. 

Top recommendations included: improve taxonomy and navigation, create content personalization based on life-stage, infuse more editorial-style imagery and better connect the experience for users with multiple accounts.

Postscript

The work and recommendation was well-received by leadership. The recommendation was utilized in the current iteration of the responsive website and improved on messaging, targeting of content, more engaging imagery and overall consistency. The log-in experience, while improved, has not been completely solved, but it does invoke clear messaging to prevent user confusion and error.

Transamerica Insurance Plan Explorer

Role: Lead Experience Designer, Strategy Lead

The Plan Explorer Tool broke new ground for Transamerica's connection with customers and visual design language. The tool launched soon after I joined the team. I quickly discovered that it was not optimized for all view ports. After identifying and documenting all issues, I met with stakeholders and technologists to propose enhancements to improve the overall experience.

I documented both the existing and proposed site structure and built a responsive prototype in Axure to best explain the recommended changes in architecture to our business partners.

Phase Two Enhancements Proposal

Conducted a heuristic analysis and performed QA on the recently launched experience. Created new wireframes, prototypes and specifications to illustrate all found issues and recommendations for the stakeholders and development team.

Site Map + User Flow

The previous team didn’t create a user flow or site map for the experience, so it was the first artifact created to better understand what was happening in the experience.

Postscript

As you can see here, despite working closely with the development vendor on the recommended changes, they were never completed and the fully responsive experience was never pushed live.

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