- Interviewing and contextual inquiry
- Rapid domain education
- Current workflow documentation
- Data synthesis and design implications
- Information design
- Interaction and workflow redesign (using
wireframes and HTML prototypes)
- Application architecture and flow design
(information architecture)
- Iterative design
- Planning and conducting design review
meetings
- Designing, conducting, and analyzing
user research studies
- Project and process documentation
- Leadership
- User advocacy
Process
A thorough understanding of how the company currently quoted,
issued, and renewed insurance was needed before a new application
could be designed. Many of these work processes were either
not documented, or the documentation was embedded in paper
forms or various manuals. Because of this, interviews with
key employees in the workers' compensation lifecycle were
conducted. After each interview, the resulting information
was documented in the form of a workflow diagram. These diagrams
were then reviewed and verified by multiple people. Even more
importantly then understanding how people currently did their
job, these interviews helped the team better understand why
they did tasks a certain way.
Other activities besides workflow documentation
helped to generate an accurate picture of the problem space:
creating a data dictionary for all terms used both within
and outside the company, collecting data from related projects,
and researching best practices within the industry.
Once the team understood the needs of
the different audiences for this project (sales people, sales
assistants, sales management, underwriters, underwriting assistants,
underwriting management, computer programmers, IT managers,
policyholders, potential policyholders), a redesign of the
workflow commenced. This led directly to the design of the
application that would be built to facilitate the entire process.
Workflow redesign as well as application
design was primarily my responsibility. I created wireframes
of the new application to better facilitate communication
about workflow changes. Upon review by the group, the wireframes
were updated and reviewed several more times before signoff
was achieved. In some cases, simple HTML prototypes were developed
to help those outside the team envision the design. Focus
groups with relevant employees were conducted to review both
the changes in workflow as well as the preliminary design
of the application.
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