Amica Insurance’s advertising agency in the Pacific Northwest approached my team to create an interactive map-centric experience so that new comers moving to the Seattle area can learn more about the different neighborhoods, transportation options, inform housing decisions and suggest things to do around the neighborhood.
The goal of the app is to show users that Amica is the insurance company that puts their customers first, treating every policyholder as a person, not a number. Amica wanted users to know they provide the peace of mind that their customers will always be taken care of.
The goal of the app is to show users that Amica is the insurance company that puts their customers first, treating every policyholder as a person, not a number. Amica wanted users to know they provide the peace of mind that their customers will always be taken care of.
My role
My role was Creative Director and UI/UX designer for the app. My role included being part of the strategy team, leading the design research and discovery, pitching the idea, leading the requirements gathering and design workshops with the client, developing wireframes, creating personas, user workflows and design. I worked closely with our developers under an agile and scrum development environment to design and produce the app.
I also served as the project manager for the SpatialDev team, managing people’s time, burn rate, budget, deliverables, working with our developers on 2-week sprints and 4 main releases.
My role was Creative Director and UI/UX designer for the app. My role included being part of the strategy team, leading the design research and discovery, pitching the idea, leading the requirements gathering and design workshops with the client, developing wireframes, creating personas, user workflows and design. I worked closely with our developers under an agile and scrum development environment to design and produce the app.
I also served as the project manager for the SpatialDev team, managing people’s time, burn rate, budget, deliverables, working with our developers on 2-week sprints and 4 main releases.
The approach
Insights from our discovery work showed that every week, a thousand people relocate to the Emerald City, making Seattle the fastest growing big city in America. People who are moving to Seattle are between the ages 18-35 and are moving for school and for tech jobs. Amica’s tagline is “Helpfulness Insured” and for this brand awareness campaign, we wanted to play off of that tagline. We wanted to show that Amica can be the one helping you, the newbie in Seattle figure out:
1. What are the different neighborhoods in Seattle and what each neighborhood offers
2. What are the different activities and entertainment in Seattle
3. How can you get around in Seattle (transportation)
The core idea of the app is helping newcomers to Seattle have a birds eye view of where they want to live (which neighborhood best fits them), where they want to play (entertainment, museums, fitness) and how they can get from one place to another (transportation). Having these 3 viewed simultaneously can help the user make better decisions about which neighborhood to choose when making Seattle their new home.
Insights from our discovery work showed that every week, a thousand people relocate to the Emerald City, making Seattle the fastest growing big city in America. People who are moving to Seattle are between the ages 18-35 and are moving for school and for tech jobs. Amica’s tagline is “Helpfulness Insured” and for this brand awareness campaign, we wanted to play off of that tagline. We wanted to show that Amica can be the one helping you, the newbie in Seattle figure out:
1. What are the different neighborhoods in Seattle and what each neighborhood offers
2. What are the different activities and entertainment in Seattle
3. How can you get around in Seattle (transportation)
The core idea of the app is helping newcomers to Seattle have a birds eye view of where they want to live (which neighborhood best fits them), where they want to play (entertainment, museums, fitness) and how they can get from one place to another (transportation). Having these 3 viewed simultaneously can help the user make better decisions about which neighborhood to choose when making Seattle their new home.
During our discovery phase, we identified 5 proto-personas that fit the initial creative brief’s objectives and target audience.
During our technical workshop, we created user stories to help us understand the functional requirements for this app. We also identified the solution architecture that would best fit our objectives, functional requirements and our budget.
Usability testing
We implemented two different usability testings during the design process. In the first part of the design process, we implemented a heuristic evaluation in the first part of design. We outsourced this exercise to an outside source so that the evaluation would be done in a neutral way, and the team evaluating the prototype would look at everything with fresh, objectives eyes.
We implemented two different usability testings during the design process. In the first part of the design process, we implemented a heuristic evaluation in the first part of design. We outsourced this exercise to an outside source so that the evaluation would be done in a neutral way, and the team evaluating the prototype would look at everything with fresh, objectives eyes.
Some of the recommendations that came out of the Heuristics evaluation
In the second usability test, we conducted moderated usability testing two months before launching the app. The purpose of the testing was to surface the top five pain points, verify that design, navigation, functionality, and information architecture meet audience needs and expectations, and to confirm whether or not the audience is successful in using the site. We recruited five users, who aligned with our personas. The users were able to verbally express to us their thoughts and impressions of the different tasks and scenarios as they were walking through them. We were also able to observe their expressions and physical states as they were interacting with the app.
Onboarding
The onboarding experience is through a playful quiz that matches the user with the top 3 Seattle neighborhoods that best suit the user's interests and personality. This onboarding experience allows us to better tailor the experience to the individual user. At the same time, it also allows us to capture data about the users that Amica Insurance will use to customize its messaging to their users.
Because of budget and time constraints, we opted for a web-based app (as opposed to a native app). The research about our users confirmed our mobile first design approach and we leveraged a hybrid of responsive and adaptive design to make sure that the experience is optimized at all screen sizes.
Technical Requirements
We built the website in Angular, leveraging Material Design elements for the UI. To aggregate all the different data sets into the site, we identified 9 different APIs, to allow users to see the different type of information.
Lean approach
As in most of our projects, we opted for a lean approach which emphasized rapid sketching, design comps, prototyping and user feedback through user testing. During development, we worked in an agile manner with 2-week sprints and multiple releases throughout the process, to allow for internal and external feedback. We hired a third party to conduct moderated and non-moderated user testing throughout the development cycle.
We built the website in Angular, leveraging Material Design elements for the UI. To aggregate all the different data sets into the site, we identified 9 different APIs, to allow users to see the different type of information.
Lean approach
As in most of our projects, we opted for a lean approach which emphasized rapid sketching, design comps, prototyping and user feedback through user testing. During development, we worked in an agile manner with 2-week sprints and multiple releases throughout the process, to allow for internal and external feedback. We hired a third party to conduct moderated and non-moderated user testing throughout the development cycle.
Results
FindMySeattle launched 4 months ago and in this time the app has had over 50,000 sessions with over 12,000 users completing the onboarding quiz. Average duration on the quiz was over 5 minutes. The average stay on the interactive map section of the app was almost 2 minutes a session.
FindMySeattle launched 4 months ago and in this time the app has had over 50,000 sessions with over 12,000 users completing the onboarding quiz. Average duration on the quiz was over 5 minutes. The average stay on the interactive map section of the app was almost 2 minutes a session.
We are currently working with the client to analyze the early pain points and to find areas for enhancement opportunities. The next steps will be to do additional interviews, surveys and usability testing in order to inform us how to grow the next phase of FindMySeattle.
