Project goals
- An intuitive customer experience aligned with the rest of the Zurich brand.
- Optimised and improved user journeys available across all devices.
- A consistent experience across the whole of the Zurich UK website.
- Validated key page templates and information architecture that balance both business requirements and customer needs.
Project execution
Stakeholder engagement
I planned and moderated workshops with employees representing every part of Zurich’s ‘Personal Lines’ business. These workshops involved co-designing IA structures, reviewing key page designs and conducting a number of exercises to engage them in the product and win their support.
Information architecture overhaul
We threw out the old site’s ancient navigational structure and designed the new IA from scratch. The structure was then tested and iterated on throughout the project via multiple user testing rounds.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) update
We completed a complete SEO review and update to the website. Every page was assessed granularly for the fundamentals, with updates applied liberally across the board. We also optimised the way our copywriters wrote for the web, showing them how to leverage keywords in order to maximise search ranking.
Design & development
I created responsive page layouts and designs for key pages on the Zurich UK website, with a particular focus on the optimisation of our online sales funnels. My role encompassed design and build management, ideation, wireframing, asset creation and front-end development.
User testing and analysis
I conducted user testing of IA structures, key page designs and prototypes. Quantitative and qualitative data were analysed to provide insights that informed the ideation and design phases.
Analysing over 800 pages
The project began with a full content audit of the current website. The sitemap helped us identify gaps in the content and to quickly understand:
- What needed reworking
- What pages could be grouped together
- Navigation issues
A best practice review of Zurich’s closest competitors was completed, reviewing the usability, responsive design, navigation and IA. The review identified what they do well, how they do it and also areas for improvement.
5 key themes were gleaned from the analysis:
- Give the customer an option to select what type of customer group they fall into (personal, business etc) it’s a useful routing tool to products and services applicable to their needs.
- Keep the labeling simple. Use human language, not insurance jargon. Don’t make the customer think.
- Don’t overdo the labels in the navigation. No more than six.
- Don’t underdo the labels in the navigation. Don’t make it hard for the customer to find what they require.
- Simple and easy to navigate menus. Use subtitles where applicable so the user can scan and pick out what they need.
Prototype testing and iterating
Different IA hypotheses were reviewed and iterated further before taking them into user testing with customers.
During a two week period over 300 potential customers tested nine variations of the IA. The participants were given tasks to complete and then had to locate where they would expect to find the answer to their task. For example:
- Select the page you would expect to be able to renew your car insurance from.
- Select the page where you would expect to be able to get a Life Insurance quote.
- Select the page where you would expect to be able to apply for a graduate job.
We were constantly reviewing the incoming data, iterating and trying new IA structures. Experimenting with different labels, the way groupings were phrased, overly simple language, more product language and so on.
Plenty of great insight was uncovered and we whittled down the IA to four designs for our primary user journeys that tested particularly well.
Project results
My team and I successfully delivered the website on launch day, fully functioning with validated information architecture, validated key page designs and adherence to brand guidelines. Over the following months, we carefully analysed tracking data and continued to optimise journeys where needed.
Due to a new responsive design frame, reworked IA and optimised sales journeys we saw increases in traffic site-wide. Tracking and analytics were also vastly improved with the full GA suite utilized alongside Sitecore 8’s user personalisation tools.
The website went on to win awards and nominations for best insurance website, graduate scheme website, and general accessibility website. Achieved only by developing great ideas, working collaboratively with diverse stakeholder groups and constant customer involvement with testing and iterating throughout.
