UX / Information Architecture

This application process has two big problems:

• It creates stress on the applicants as they are required to move back and forth between filling out information on tablet and paper.
• Administrators are required to manually transfer applicant's information from the declaration form into digital database, which can be time consuming and makes the data susceptible to human errors. Also customer's personal health data becomes exposed to the administrators.

Users

Users of the declaration forms are customers of the bank who are interested in applying for life insurance with the extra money they have in their bank account. The majority of the applicants are elders, older than 60. Because they tend to be non-digital natives, it is crucial to design a product that would be easy to use, even for those who are not familiar with the use of digital devices.

We then mapped out the possible flows to explore the smoothest way to ask the declaration questions. 

"How can we simplify the complicated flow of asking users to input detailed information of their health conditions?"

We organized the question items into 7 big categories, which will be presented on the main navigation page. Each category on the main navigation will guide users to subsequent pages asking further questions.  Below is the user flow:

userflow of the declaration process

We initially designed the navigation page to allow users to access all 7 questions at once, to give them a better overall sense of the process (iteration1). However, we found that providing simultaneous access to all 7 questions confused the users. We decided to limit to having only one question active at a time to prevent users from getting lost in the navigation process (iteration 2). 

Efficient way of search

When declaring health condition, applicants need to first search and select the name of the disease. We wanted to design an interface where applicants could find and select their health condition / disease name accurately, with minumum taps .  

Since we were specifically designing for tablets, we wanted to provide good alternatives to using search box. Search box requires users to type in the disease name that can be long and complicated. It is better to minimize typing on tablet, as software keyboard is not as easy or as fast as using a physical keyboard. 

We explored various search options, and we initally considered providing "searching by category" and " search by body parts" placed into separate tabs (iteration 1). 

Iteration 1: tab concept

However we realized that use of tabs for different search methods had low discoverability on elderly users, as it required them to tap on each tabs in order to discover the search methods. In iteration 2 below, we decided to display all search methods on one screen to increase discoverability.

Iteration 2: single-page concept

After learning that more than 60% of the applicants' declared symptoms can be narrowed down to 7 most common symptoms, we added a list of the most commonly declared symotoms at the top(iteration 3). This allowed majority of applicants to select their symptoms right away, without having to choose a category or type into the search box. We moved the search box to the very bottom of the page as the search box will require the most taps compared to other search methods, and thus wanted the applicants to use that as the last resort.

In iteration 3, we also replaced the icons of body parts with an illustration of an entire body. Although the icons were used to assist the users visually, we found that they users were confused, as the icons refered organs and inner body parts that users weren't familiar with. Using the illustration of the entire body with the labeled body parts provided more intuitive understanding, as users are more familar of their body parts in relation to their entire body.

Final Design

Although we were to design under the restriction of keeping the same look and feel of the preexisting system design, we made it user friendly by focusing on the following:

Great accessibility

Elderly users have difficulty reading small letters and operating on small, detailed interface. We aimed to create an interface with high accessibility by focusing on legibility (using big texts and shorter sentences that are easy to understand). We also aimed to provide easily tappable areas by the carefully adjusting the button sizes and spacing, in order to prevent elderly users from accidentally tapping the wrong button.

High discoverability 

Elderly users are not familiar with the function of modern UI components. We avoided using designs with low discoverabilities such as tabs, and used incorporated better discoverability. 

Easy to comprehend

Elderly users were easily overwhelmed by detailed information. In order to prevent them from information overload, we discussed closely with the clients to decide which instruction/information will be absolutely necessary to the users, so that we can create contrast when displaying information; we accentuated and important information while placing less emphasis on secondary information.

What's next?

In the next project phase we will need to test out the prototype at the vendors and observe how elderly users will interact with the service, to make further improvements on the product before developing.

For this project we had to use existing system components from the clients due to their budget restriction, but in the next phase we hope to propose a new UI below for more simple and easy to understand experience: