Our User Research class was split up into groups and tasked with creating online billing prototypes for Pekin Insurance. The goal was to make something that was easy to use and provided the information needed to pay bills and check on certain information. Making this prototype took commitment, determination, and critical thinking, but the process ended up being a valuable insight into how companies test and develop UX and UI for certain programs.
PROCESS
The first sprint of this project involved identifying goals, research, and conducting interviews and surveys.
Our group started off by identifying our business and user goals for the project. These goals became the foundation for what we wanted to make with our prototype and how it would help our intended audience. Once these were nailed down, we conducted field studies and interviews with individuals already using online billing to get their thoughts. User surveys were sent out to get additional user insights and thoughts about online billing. We the then analyzed some competing brands to get an idea of what features were already in place, what features worked for them, and what they were lacking.
The second sprint involved ideation and turning our research into actual examples, creating a draft of our prototype, and testing it out.
This involved creating unique personas, each with different ages, personalities, and lives. Our group also made empathy maps that went along with each persona and explained them further in depth. Between the research and examples, we had enough information to get a draft of our prototype in place. We made desktop and mobile versions for the prototype, which we then tested with potential users. These users gave us critical feedback that helped us refine and strengthen our final product even further.
SOLUTIONS & RESULTS
The third and final sprint of this project involved finalizing either the desktop or mobile version of the online billing program and presenting our results to the client and the class. Our group took in feedback from user testing and our client to refine the mobile version of Pekin Insurance's online billing. The final version turned out to be a more comprehensive design of what we originally created and was the result of all our hard work.
I was able to obtain several skills throughout this project as well. With my group, I learned more about preliminary UX work such as user research, interviewing, and testing. The research, personas, and empathy maps helped the most during our iteration period. Here I learned how to collaborate with teammates on ideas, apply feedback to UX projects, and continue refining a project towards a working prototype. The end of the project provided me with knowledge about presenting a project to a client and making post-project adjustments.
This project with Pekin Insurance helped me learn more about the field of UX and UI design. It ultimately made me a better designer and encouraged me to think from a perspective different from my own.
