Designing an Intuitive and Scalable Platform for Insurance Sales & Operations
Westland Insurance
Overview & Impact
I had the privilege of leading the design efforts for a new insurance product platform at Westland Insurance. After acquiring National Truck League (NTL), Westland began revamping its systems, including an outdated and unintuitive platform that was plagued by usability issues and lacked many essential features.
I was responsible for running the Discovery Workshops to understand and break down the product challenges, setting the design direction for the implementation team, and managing scope and design feedback throughout the process alongside two very talented designers.
Role:
Director of Design, led 2 other Product Designers.
Director of Design, led 2 other Product Designers.
The Challenges
The legacy system was difficult for both salespeople and client success managers to use. On the client side, the platform lacked essential features that would enable self-service. Many processes were still manual, relying on emails and phone calls, which led to long wait times and unnecessary back-and-forth communication. Features and information were hard to locate, and certain data was either inaccessible or not editable for some users.
Trucking insurance is a highly specialized product, so the design team conducted extensive research and interviews to gather the necessary context. Change management and co-creation were also critical to ensure successful adoption and effective use of the platform.
Example persona above, along with their challenges and needs.
Process
For all the products I’ve worked on, the process always begins with a Discovery workshop. These workshops help break down ambiguity into clear, actionable pieces that both the design and implementation teams can use to create and plan effectively. We align on a North Star, define personas and users, map out user journeys and challenges, and ultimately decide on critical features and a long-term roadmap.
Before the product design and implementation process began, a Discovery Workshop Report was presented to Westland Insurance. This ensured alignment between their stakeholders and champion, and our design and implementation teams. The report captured all discussion topics and decision points, detailed the personas, and outlined a crucial project roadmap with both prioritized features and future features.
Once the project kicked off, we began mapping out the UX flows of each major feature, so designers could imagine and document the journeys for both Westland stakeholders and our internal development team.
⭐Prior to my arrival at TTT Studios, the high-level UX flow stage was not a part of the design process. After introducing them, UX flows significantly improved alignment between design, engineering, and product teams, as well as with client stakeholders.
One of many UX flow examples. These diagrams helped developers and designers align on the intended flowx, as well as edge cases and behaviours.
Wireframes & Prototyping
During my time at TTT Studios, I introduced new processes and workflows to make the design process more efficient and shorten the time to value. For this product, we used a wireframe library to quickly compile repeatable components and generate wireframes that effectively communicated features and functionality to our internal cross-functional teams and to Westland.
We also annotated the wireframes (i.e. the labels seen in the small set of wireframes below) and documented behaviors, edge cases, and universal design patterns so developers always have one source of truth for repeated and intended behaviors.
User Testing
As mentioned earlier, co-creation with end users was incredibly important. We set out to test our wireframe prototypes, created in Figma, to see whether users could easily complete their routine tasks and identify where confusion might occur.
The goal was to optimize learnability and usability, ultimately leading to higher adoption when the platform launched. We assigned specific tasks to participants, timed them, and provided minimal guidance so we could observe inefficiencies and uncover opportunities for improvement.
The results exceeded our expectations. On average, tasks took only 50% of the original time to complete. Users were able to quickly find features they would use every day, and valuable information was surfaced at the dashboard level so it was always accessible. Timing the tasks became almost irrelevant, as users consistently completed them in under five seconds.
We recorded a participant saying, “I am already seeing what I would like to see. As of now, I'm really pleased!”
Deliverables
As part of the Phase 1 scope, the design team delivered high-fidelity mockups that were meticulously crafted in close collaboration with end users. These mockups reflected both the functional needs uncovered during research and the visual identity of Westland Insurance.
We followed Westland's brand standards guide to ensure consistency across the platform, while also extending their design language by creating custom assets that did not previously exist in their system. This included designing context-specific icons, custom data input fields, and interactive components tailored to the unique workflows of trucking insurance. Every visual and interaction element was thoughtfully considered to support usability, accessibility, and brand alignment.
Outcome
Phase 1 of the Westland NTL product, which only lasted 2 months, was entirely design-driven, as the client champion and stakeholder wanted the designs to be finalized while the implementation team planned and strategized the back end required to migrate the legacy system.
The design team and I delivered all necessary artifacts to Westland, including high-fidelity visual design mockups, detailed business logic, edge cases, and intended user behaviors. While Westland expressed sincere gratitude and appreciation for our work, the project was unfortunately put on hold due to unforeseen internal complications on their end.
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“I was extremely impressed with the thoroughness of your guys' workshops and questions, proving you were really paying attention to the needs!”
Ben Stiller, Westland Insurance
Ben Stiller, Westland Insurance
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