State Farm Mobile App
Company: State Farm
Tools: Axure, Sketch, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
All of State Farm’s insurance and financing offerings, as well as the ability to easily check your account information, all in one easy-to-use mobile app.
The work I did at State Farm was incredibly varied, having the opportunity to work on everything from smaller web initiatives to advertisements for various company services and offerings. Among those, my absolute favorite was the State Farm mobile app, which takes everything (mostly) that a user can do on statefarm.com, and condensed it into a mobile interface that offers those same services and functionality in the palm of your hand.
There were two main challenges we faced:
One of the biggest pain points when it comes to Auto and Home Insurance, as we learned, is that the process is often complicated and requires a lot of information from the user. Not to mention, the app allows you to make an auto claim, which is a process that users will often undergo directly after an incident, meaning that they’ll be in a state of distress or frustration from the outset. This means that the way the app presents that information is of crucial importance.
Good design doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and our testing and data collection was the most important piece:
Thankfully, State Farm’s testing and UX Research teams are among the best in the industry, and we were allowed to prototype rapidly. We were able to create rough, wireframed prototypes of the app that we placed in front of real users in the Atlanta area almost once a week, so ideas could be tested and rapidly iterated on.
On top of that, we were able to make use of existing web analytics to gather quantitative data from users about which pages were most used, how they made use of them, most frequently opened claim types, etc.
After many rounds of testing, iterating, and breaking things, our home page and main navigation started to come together:
The main “home page” of the app, as well as ‘Roadside Assistance,’ which allows users to call for help in case of a breakdown or running out of fuel.
Using methods such as interviews, rough prototyping, and card sorting exercises, we narrowed down the homepage to three pieces: payments/bills, vehicle policy information, and roadside assistance. Roadside assistance can also be accessed from the ‘Claims’ page, because users often also wanted to see this option within that page.
From there, the main navigation then allowed users to access the three most utilized features of State Farm’s services: insurance and policy information, make a claim, and access State Farm Bank for finances.
Within the Insurance page, we allow viewers to quickly view their insurance card, deal with any pending documents and document history, add a vehicle, and other resources.
Keeping it friendly and conversational:
One of the most important aspects that we pushed for within the application was to make sure that the user felt they were being spoken to and taken care of, and language and presentation were massively important in achieving that. This required us to reevaluate State Farm’s header and body copy styles, to use casual language and welcoming phrases (‘Good Afternoon’ instead of ‘Your Insurance,’ for instance). While this is a lot more commonplace now, for State Farm, this was a big shift in approach at the time.
We also carried that into the design of Claims and Roadside assistance, opting for a chat-based interface instead of presenting users with a large, intimidating form asking for information. By breaking the information up piece by piece and employing that same welcoming language, users by and large told us that they felt better and less annoyed at navigating the claims process.
Making something difficult feel easy
In conclusion, that statement summarizes our intent with the State Farm mobile app very well. The goal was to take something with many services, options, and information, and distill it into the most necessary elements, presenting more only when the user needs more, and making sure that they aren’t overwhelmed once they do.
We went through several iterations during testing, which I’m not at liberty to share here (but would be happy to in an interview setting!), and where we arrived, I believe, addresses those goals very well.
Though I’m no longer at State Farm, I’m really excited to see what the incredible team that I had the absolute pleasure of working with is able to do next.