Meerkat Car Insurance
Overview
A car insurance website that can assist users on comparing third parties companies to find the cheapest for car insurance.
My goal is to refine the website as that was my initial idea, but I wanted to perfect the website so I conducted interviews for feedback to redesign the website in detail.
I wanted to use the Government Digital Service (GDS) kit to make the transition simple and easy to understand for users . I wanted to understand how they my primary users feel about the meerkat and Gov.uk websites and see what parts they find difficult during their quote process. My decision for this redesign started by several negatives found in the original website, including cluttered layout, confusing navigation, lack of accessibility features, and inconsistent design elements.
Role
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UX / UI Design
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User Researcher
Duration
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2 Months
Tools
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Figma
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Google Docs
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Miro
Team
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Individual
Problem
Car insurance websites can be daunting as the primary user are adding their details for the generator to find them a good quote, but from my main focus of the website "meerkat car insurance", their website from the UI/UX perspective can feel overwhelming for a lot of users.
Having the Government Digital Service (GDS) kit in to play, I believe this will help the website overcome the lack of design and help with the uncultured UI that was shown in the original website.
Simplify, Elevate, Thrive
THAT IS WHAT THE REDESIGN INTENDS TO PROVIDE.
Having the Government Digital Service (GDS) kit in to play, I believe this will help the website overcome the lack of design and help with the uncultured UI that was shown in the original website.
Solution
DESIGNING FOR ONLINE CONFIDENCE
Having the Government Digital Service (GDS) kit in to play, I believe this will help the website overcome the lack of design and help with the uncultured UI that was shown in the original website.
Research
Conducted an in-depth analysis of the existing Meerkat Car Insurance website, identifying pain points and areas for improvement. This included user feedback and usability testing.
Method
DESIGN WITH PURPOSE
In this project, I successfully implemented an objective-driven design approach. Through surveys, interviews, and journey maps, I uncovered pain points that validated my concerns about the website objectively. This valuable insight informed the redesign process effectively.
Pain-Points
THE NEGATIVES ENCOUNTERED
The website has a lot of functional buttons, which may be overused and confuse users as to where the main button is supposed to go.
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Overuse of Blue:
Users may find it difficult to navigate the website properly if blue is used too much, since it may distract from other visual elements.
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Homepage Overload:
The home page has an excessive amount of graphics inside of buttons, which could make it difficult for users to navigate and possibly confusing.
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Excessive Whitespace:
According to primary user testing, a website's professional look may be negatively impacted by excessive whitespace which is displayed after the bullet points.
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Information Overload and Form Complexity:
The website may overwhelm users and increase their bounce rate by providing them with an excessive amount of text and form fields to fill out.
Persona
PRIMARY PERSONA
"I can write stories that I want to write, and I get to decide what the reader reads, because I'm a writer. I'm a fiction writer that my fans adore. I prefer easy work. I recently passed my driving test. I'm hoping to find websites that are clear-cut and point me in the correct way for the best car insurance deals."
Ahmet's story -
With this information it helps me understand what people are wanting to access the website and what background they come from.
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My questions are -
1. What kind of people are using the websites?
2. What are they background and what are they driven by?
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USER PERSONA
Journey Map
PRIMARY PERSONA
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The UK government website was a perfect transformation to use with the help of the Government Digital Service (GDS) kit.
Seeing the homepage of the original Meerkat website, it made me interested on fixing the negatives but i ended up going forward on conducting usability studies and recording my journey.
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Here are the a few screenshots to showcase the negatives that I have found and how it can look better with the GDS kit.
Design
ADDRESSING FLAWED UI/UX DESIGN AND CORRECTING TOWARDS IMPROVEMENT
Sitemap
SEQUENCES METHOD
I chose the sequences approach because it anticipates that the user will follow a linear path to complete the basic questions and reach the final screen displaying the insurance rates.
Usability Study Parameters
Study Type: Unmoderated Study
Location: United Kingdom
Participants : 4 participants (2 young male adults, 1 elderly women and 1 female adult)
Length: 20-30 minutes
1. Having the GDS kit be more in favour when testing with user from original website
2. In contrast to the previous Meerkat website, the layout is more captivating.
3. The CTA button grew more compelling to click in order to proceed.
Usability testing #1
In order to find out how users felt about the websites, I tested both the redesign and the original version. I as a result carried out two separate usability tests for each of the websites.
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One participants (elderly women) quoted :
"Give older generation more time! I didn’t like when I was shut out of Compare the Market because I had visited more than once of companies. I was browsing like folk do when they're shopping, I need to make sure I was getting the best deal, luckily I had picked one and paid for it before you shut me out".
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This highlights me to the need to include the timeout session on the new version. How it can be very aggravating for an elderly individual to be abruptly logged out of her progress.
Usability testing #2
I carried my usability study the second time to see how the same participants feel towards about the iterated version of the meerkat car insurance website.
Most of the participants had a positive reaction towards the website seeing how the Ui has changed.
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One participants (Young adult) quoted :
"The design of the site as a whole is incredibly intuitive and consistent, and even accommodates in significant manner for those with visual disabilities by avoiding adjacent similar colouration."
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​This made me realise how the negatives were changed in a positive manner without any complaints. This usability study went for not only for me but for all the of the usability testers.
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High-Fidelity Prototype
Approaching a low-fidelity prototype. Forming the components from one to another brought everything together. The aim, as always, was to design a responsive website for the customer to utilise during the checkout process. I showed my concepts to my colleagues in order to get some critical input that would help me improve the design. I took note of any concerns that the members faced and began to address each one step by step in order to provide a pleasant user experience.
Conclusion.
Above all, the GDS kit was enjoyable to use. Seeing a car insurance website that has been altered with the GDS kit was more interesting to users because the majority of them were already familiar with the Gov.uk website. Seeing what consumers seek for in insurance quotes and their constraints, as well as working on this project, taught me a lot.
What are the key takeaways that I have learned?
I've discovered that I can balance out the disadvantages by taking the original website and making improvements while testing the site to gauge user satisfaction. This is where my usability research came into play, giving me an insider's view of the actual situation from actual customers in the café.
My next steps for this project
1. Usability study - Look for more limitations on the Meerkat website to determine what needs to be modified, and run a usability test to see whether these issues are in fact a problem for users.
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2. Adding a virtual assistant option - This might be perfect for people who have urgent queries that need to be answered while they go through the vehicle insurance form.