Project Background

American Family Insurance is a Fortune 500 company that focuses on personal & business insurance.

I was brought on board to give AmFam.com a fully responsive redesign, which has had a substantial impact on metrics since launch. At the time, the website didn’t function properly on mobile devices, users couldn’t find pages or complete tasks, and the look & feel did not fit the company’s existing branding in other media. Other challenges faced were that the company was shifting towards an Agile methodology, and the team was switching to an all new content management system, where this project would be the first to prove its place within the enterprise.

Process

The first step was to understand what was working and what wasn't.

We found out through usability testing that users had trouble completing basic tasks. The website had a lot going on and we needed to reduce users’ cognitive load. This lead into sketching out the new site with the mentality that less is more.

I started with the site navigation, and ended up sketching pages upon pages of concepts. At the same time, I created a mood board and consulted members of the brand team to start to envision the site’s look and feel. After getting some initial feedback from rapid prototyping with wireframes, I put together 3 very different high fidelity prototypes to get closer to an end result and to get more feedback from our users as well as stakeholders. One played it pretty safe, another was very experimental, and the last was somewhere in between. What we found was that our users preferred something familiar and we had a winner. Now that we had a clear direction to move forward with, pieces began to fall into place.

Outcome

 In terms of business impact after launch, we saw a 144% YOY increase in quote starts, 159% increase in engagement and a 203% increase in online sales. The digital style guide has been continuously updated and used to aid the production of the quoting tools, lead generation forms, the enterprise intranet site, agent websites, agent tools, My Account, the My AmFam App, and many others. The Digital Style Guide has served as a starting point for a Design System that’s currently in progress within the company. The website has an average of 2.5 million unique visitors every month and continues to pave the way for other tools and systems within the corporation.

iOS & Android Native Apps

After the launch of the website, the team began work on user accounts. Once they’re logged in, users can see their insurance cards, pay their bills, and in the event that they have an accident, either file a claim or contact their agent. The app reused many of the same styles and components used on the corporate website, resulting in a cohesive experience overall.

Quoting Tools

Continuing the consistency throughout the company, the quoting tools began to be redesigned to utilize the Design System as well.

Reception

These recognitions help validate all the hard work by the team to create a digital experience that brings our brand's mission to life.

Mobile Web Best Practices

Oct 2018  -  W3 Award

 
First Place - Best User Experience

Nov 2017  -  2017 Vega Digital Awards Competition 

The corporate website for American Family Insurance, www.amfam.com, has been selected as a Canopus (First Place) award winner in the 2017 Vega Digital Awards competition for best user experience.

Vega Digital Awards is an international competition for creative professionals who inspire thorough concept, writing or design through traditional or digital media. The competition receives more than 1,500 submissions from 32 countries around the world. The Vega Digital Awards are administered and judged by IAA Global and a carefully selected panel of internationally-recognized creative professionals.

Entries were rated according to rigorous standards. During the judging period, the panelists searched for and identified the most innovative and creative concepts, the strongest executions, and the highest quality in digital media.

Judges hail from leading companies in the creative and digital industry from all corners of the globe, and include professionals from such power brands as Grayling, DMG, McCann Worldgroup, Unicef and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

"The team is extremely proud of the award,” said Regan Vanden Boogard, American Family Insurance user experience manager. “The vision was to create an informative, extremely usable and highly desirable site that was an embodiment of our brand.,"

Added Ben Buss, American Family digital experience manager, " The cross-functional, multi-talented team who launched the new experience and completed the underlying technology transformation created an outstanding customer-focused experience.

Silver Stevie Award

May 2017  -  2017 American Business Awards

 American Family Insurance was named the winner of a Stevie® Award in The 15th Annual American Business Awards.

 American Family was nominated in the Website category for Insurance and won the Silver award for amfam.com. More than 190 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year’s Stevie Award winners. Among the judging criteria included overall quality of the entry relative to the industry, the merits of the claims to innovation, integrity, effectiveness, creativity and/or growth claimed in the entry, and the quality of the entry's content.

Among the judges’ comments about amfam.com were: “Nicely designed site. The content is simple to understand...;” “Great menu design, great use of content on the home page…;” “You achieved your goals of creatively engaging the customer. The navigation and access to information without clicking deeper into the site was great. The way you opened a second page but let the consumer know you were doing a redirection was awesome...”

“Our goal is to create an industry-leading digital experience that brings our brand to life,” said Bethany Harrington associate vice president, digital marketing and customer experience. “This award validates we’re on the right track, as we continually look for ways to exceed customer expectations.”

The American Business Awards are the nation’s premier business awards program. All organizations operating in the U.S.A. are eligible to submit nominations – public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small. 

More than 3,600 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of categories, including Startup of the Year, Executive of the Year, Best New Product or Service of the Year, Marketing Campaign of the Year, Live Event of the Year, and App of the Year, among others.

Awwwards Nominee

Feb 2017  -  Awwwards

Outstanding Website: Amfam.com Redesign

Sep 2016  -  Web Award