PROGRESSIVE: VARIOUS

PROGRESSIVE INSURANCE | PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY: WATERFALL

SUMMARY

ROLE.

  • Generalist:
  • UX design
  • Frontend development
  • Visual design
  • Copywriting
  • Project management
  • User research and usability testing support

PROJECTS.

  • Progressive.com redesign (first responsive Website in the industry
  • Snapshot and Test Drive campaign
  • Snapshot of You sweepstakes and experience
  • Progressive Art Collection app
  • Various copywriting support and concepts
  • Landing page campaigns

EXISTING MATERIALS

Opportunity: existing customers and prospects want to use whatever form factor is available to them to get a quote, buy insurance, file a claim, or sign in to their policy. As of 2013, no competitors in the United States had implemented a truly responsive Web experience. Hypothesis: Progressive.com users will have a better experience and internal  development costs and inefficiencies will be reduced with a single code base and UI that can gracefully scale across all screen sizes and form factors. My role was to lead the upfront UX design and support research efforts, while coordinating the work with the frontend developers. The project took roughly a year. Outcome: Progressive received positive PR and buzz for being a forward-thinking company and maintained it’s mantle as the Keynote® Systems Insurance Carrier Scorecard #1 Insurance Website.

An example of mobile views of the same interface. I was heavily influence by Mobile First, a book by Luke Wroblewski, and Responsive Web Design, a book by Ethan Marcotte. I used both as inspirations and to take a mobile-first/forward approach to designing each workflow, from the homepage, to the main product landing pages, and all the way down to the individual content pages. During usability testing, we took a “T-shaped” approach, and had users perform some higher-level tasks, skimming across the top of the interface (main navigation, primary landing pages), but then had them go deep within the Auto section of the locally-running protoype to see how the navigation held up as well as their ability to perform deeper level tasks.

A look at the progression of a user’s journey through through the Auto section.

Prior to the Progressive.com redesign, I led UX design efforts for Snapshot and the Test Drive 30-day trial campaign, one of the industry’s first pay-as-you-drive solutions and business models—which had originated as “TripSense” (which was never fully marketed and/or reached a level of penetration in the industry). Opportunity: prospective customers and existing customers want to be rewarded for their safe driving habits. As of 2012, there were no major programs (aside from pilots like TripSense) offered by large insurance companies that offered the ability to help people save money based on their driving habits. Hypothesis: people will eagerly purchase usage-based insurance, and will be more easily retained if they are given an easy-to-use interface for monitoring their performance and habits; more so if such an experience is gamified and enjoyable. Outcome: the product was rolled out in 2012-13 and immediately began to generate revenue for Progressive. It has maintained a strong foothold in the industry ever since.A look at the progression of a user’s journey through through the Auto section.

Another example of the gamification aspect of the Snapshot Test Drive campaign, and our strategy for creating a friendly competition among friends and family. I was responsible for the upfront UX concepts and primarily delivered wireframes, which our visual designers then used to create high fidelity mockups.

As Progressive was the chief sponsor of the Mike & Mike show, we leveraged that partnership to help promote the campaign. I also had the opportunity to meet Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg in person as a part of the collaboration.

The experience of course had to give users a sense of what to expect and how they were doing overall. As such, I designed an overview screen with the idea of providing users a photorealistic metaphor of a vehicle driving down a road—each mile-marker signifying a milestone in their journey with the program.

The “Snapshot of You” campaign was intended to build buzz around the Snapshot campaign right around the time Snapshot began to rollout across the industry. I led the effort of reaching out to sweepstakes vendors, obtaining statements of work (SOWs), and negotiating price and timeline with each to fully leverage the immediacy of the opportunity. I drove the campaign from start to finish, assisting with the design of the campaign entry experience (which was developed by Eprize), and working with business leaders to ensure the competition was on point and relevant. Above, are some screenshots of a report I’d generated at the conclusion of the sweepstakes, which generated 377,726,360 impressions for Progressive and the Snapshot campaign. Outcomes: while the campaign generated several impressions and a great deal of buzz, there was a large drop off in terms of entries as the task of having to upload a photo turned out to be a large barrier for participants than we’d expected.

I led the UX design and collaborated with a visual designer on Progressive’s first ever mobile application, which was intended to give the public a glimpse into the incredible (and surprisingly robust) Progressive corporate art collection. The project also achieved the outcome of helping us build our mobile application design and development chops for iOS and Android, which later informed the Progressive purchasing and policy management mobile application experiences. I worked with an internal developer who was also learning how to develop native mobile applications and together, we launched the application prior to 2010.

A closer look at how some of the workflows worked.

Because I started my career as a visual designer, the Web Experience team occasionally tapped my skills to augment the capacity of our full-time visual designers. Above, are a couple of examples homepage value proposition campaigns I mocked up (copy, visual design, and theming); each of which were launched into production and part of our multi-variant homepage marketing rotation depending on current strategy and campaign.

My visual design skills also came in handy for augmenting the work of our landing page sub team, which I also implemented as a frontend developer. Above, is an example of the Name Your Price targeted marketing campaign. As with my evolving strategy for leveraging a mobile first approach, I designed the mobile screen first and leveraged CSS media queries (we’re just starting to emerge) to make the experience respond across all form factors and viewports. I helped champion responsive design at Progressive, and it later became front and center for the major Progressive.com redesign.

Some examples of copywriting efforts I’d led during my time at Progressive. Being on the Web experience team, managing social media and digital communications fell onto the Web Experience team prior to our PR and Marketing teams later assuming those responsibilities. For more than two years, I was the voice of Progressive on Twitter, and provided support for generating content on Facebook. I even took a turn at personifying Flo, the insurance cashier (company spokesperson and mascot) on Twitter. My responsibilities included both proactive, marketing content, and reactive support—reaching out to users on Twitter who had complaints about the company or something related to the brand. Later, I Ieveraged my skills and growing reputation as a writing and content creator to author marketing content for the Snapshot and Test Drive campaigns (Test Drive was a 30-day trial program for Snapshot).

Some examples of Twitter content I’d authored—both, proactive (marketing) and reactive.

Some examples of copy and creative concepts I’d mocked up as part of the Snapshot Test Drive campaign. We leveraged pieces and parts of these ideas as the Test Drive campaign matured.

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