Independent Agent Dashboard
Role: Individual contributor, UX lead.
Contributors: Kelsey Gallagher, Brad Schnittger, Elise Richey
Coterie was in the early stages of creating a product that would help independent agents bind insurance policies faster. The goal was to create a platform that would easily satisfy the needs of the agents and create a differentiator in the marketplace. When I joined this project, the company had already created the basic components, user flows and a working prototype. I was asked to build on top of what they already had and hit the delivery date.
For this project I worked alongside a project manager, a small development team and later another designer I hired. We used agile methodology with 2-week sprints to deliver features and squash bugs. We leveraged Clubhouse (a
Kanban board style software) to write and groom user stories for both the design and development team.
At the beginning of this journey, we conducted interviews
with potential users that were already doing business with
the company. They provided us with insights and helped us
create a much better experience.
During the research period, I discovered that what the
company had built prior to my arrival was not responsive.
This forced me to pivot from doing user research into building a responsive version of the tool.
The users needed the ability to see elements on the page without being trapped at a specific browser size.
We prioritized making it responsive over other features due to the amount of effort it was going to take to add this capability. Once that goal was completed, I created other pages and features based on stakeholders needs such as an affiliation system, an account management page and a more robust policy page.
Post launch, I started working on Dashboard’s second version which would address issues we had uncovered but didn’t get a chance to work on due to the tight deadline. I worked on reducing the usage of modals and moving their content to a separate page. A new tabbing system allowed us to group content closer together and help the user navigate the quote better. The reduction of modal usage helped our analytics providing us with ability to track user interactions much better.
The Agent Dashboard has become the company’s flagship product and has provided agents with one of the fastest ways to quote small commercial insurance and quote 24/7 without having to be online. The platform has added numerous features based directly on user feedback. We have received multiple positive comments from agents regarding their satisfaction around ease of use and speed.
