Improving the agent portal with an 83.33 SUS score
Role
- UX/UI Designer
Team
- 1 project manager
- 1 business analyst
- 2 designers
Timeline
- Jun 2021 – Aug 2021
- SUS score
- 83.33
- agent interviews
- 5
- usability tests
- 3
Overview
Project context
AIA's agent portal was built to help agents create group insurance proposals and manage applications digitally. But adoption remained low, with many agents still relying on paper during the sales process.
Problem
The proposal workflow did not fully match how agents worked. Creating proposals, understanding product options, and managing follow-ups felt harder than they needed to be.
Business goal
Improve agent adoption and efficiency by making the proposal workflow easier to use.
My role
I led the heuristic review and focused on redesigning the proposal creation flow. I also supported agent interviews, prototyping, usability testing, and design documentation with another UX/UI designer.
Heuristic evaluation
Identifying usability issues in the agent portal
At the start of the project, our team studied the current user interface of the agent portal, using a heuristic evaluation method to systematically uncover usability issues and align our redesign strategies with UX best practices.
Example of heuristic evaluation: The proposal generator screen, highlighting problems with layout confusion, unclear action button, and content visibility that could hinder user efficiency.
Agent interview
Uncover agent hesitation through in-depth interviews
After experiencing the agent portal first-hand and identifying various design inconsistencies, we embarked on a series of in-depth interviews with a group of agents. These interviews were designed to uncover their day-to-day challenges and revealed key pain points with the portal, such as:
- Outdated and limited field selection options
- A lack of accessible help resources
- Time-consuming file upload process
- Cumbersome and complex system logic
- Inefficient document management
Client collaboration
Collaborative client engagement to refine direction
With our extensive research in hand, we summarised the issues and user pain points to present to our client. To ensure clarity and alignment, we showed our initial wireframe designs and invited constructive feedback to refine the proposed direction. Our client presented us with several challenges:
- Comply with the newly established AIA design system
- Integrate innovative features such as 'Siri-like Suggestions' into the portal
- A tight schedule that required us to move from design to testing in just 4 weeks
Solution 1
Redesigned proposal generator to effectively create proposals
Catering to agents who need to efficiently create proposals, the new F-shaped layout simplifies navigation and form completion, reducing errors during high-pressure customer meetings.
Solution 2
Enhanced proposal management to save time on document management
To help agents manage multiple proposals, the updated design introduces bookmarking for quick identification and retrieval of important documents.
Solution 3
Flexible document upload for seamless application submission
To address the inconvenient process of document collection, we implemented a shared drive feature that allows customers to upload the necessary documents for agent review, reducing the need for in-person document handling.
Result
Real-world feedback
We invited 3 agents from previous interviews to test our high-fidelity prototype. Their feedback, along with a SUS score of 83.33, indicated improved usability in the tested flow.