Sr. UX/Product Designer
Primerica Financial Services
Product Strategy, Product Design, Associate Experience, Personas, Journeys, Design, Measurement Planning
2015-2016
Primerica focuses on providing financial products and services to middle-income families.
In 2014, Primerica released the Primerica Mobile App for individuals seeking to build their own financial services business as a Rep for the company. Primerica wanted to leverage mobile to help all Reps sell those financial products and services.
A new portion of the app called Primerica Online Learning (or POL) was being introduced to help Regional VPs and Field Training Reps train and develop new Reps in their businesses. Mobile adoption was widespread, with 68% of US adults owning a smartphone¹, and mobile becoming a primary source of news and information. The company saw this as an opportunity to capitalize on emerging technology,
The Communication and Marketing department owned this new POL experience, partnering with IBM on a goal to deliver the initiative through the Primerica Mobile App before the 2015 Primerica Conference.
However, with no strategic direction for the initiative and a 12-month deadline to design, develop, and deliver, someone would have to drive forward the work end-to-end.
I was hired in 2015 to contribute as a Sr. UX/Product Designer in the Communications and Marketing department.
I was tasked with helping IBM develop a path forward for designing and delivering the POL app The expectation was that I’d do design, but my actual contributions far exceeded those expectations.
Shared ownership of features across the Primerica Mobile app. I would require strong stakeholder management.
Low engagement with existing tools indicated a gap in understanding opportunities to add value with users.
Limited technical knowledge of IBMs CMS tools was a blocker I would have to take action to address with past experience.
I would have to create the first design system and interactions for the Primerica Online Learning mobile experience.
I used a 4D approach, seeking to understand what the business saw as an opportunity, aligning with potential users through research, design concepts, and testing. Lastly, I developed a comprehensive plan for implementation with development and how to measure performance.
I went to Austin, TX, for a 3-day Design Thinking workshop with IBM. This was my first experience with the framework.
This workshop helped me understand conflicting requests, gaps in the product, impacts on business, and aspirations.
3. Setting the Future StateA future state map helped me understand the potential to deliver value to the business and positively impact potential users.
I continue to connect with internal stakeholders to better understand the goals of the business and the challenges facing the product. These internal interviews were primarily with IBM Developers, Field Trainers, and Technical Leaders.
“Reps feel the current app is already too slow, hurting their ability to sell. How will more content help?”
– Developer
“ With roughly 90,000 Reps, engagement with our app’s current features feels low. How do we increase engagement?”
– Field Training
” How do we deliver the right info at the right time, inspire New Reps, and grow Rep networks?”
– Technology Leader
I planned and executed research with users, developing a survey that I shared directly with representatives onsite, and conducted interviews to understand their goals, frustrations, and motivations. I used findings to create personas and experience maps for training.
I asked potential users to share experiences with similar apps, helping me understand factors influencing expectations. This set key principles for features to design while supporting ideas created by the business, putting my in a great spot to begin designing.
Sprint to District is a feature I designed to encourage New Reps to create training programs that will quickly grow their network and ranking in their Primerica business.
Sprint to District also introduces the ability to set due dates. Giving New Reps and RVP the ability to set training goals.
I designed a flat content browsing experience, and introduced the ability to progressively view PDFs, video and audio. This allowed users to start learning and training while additional content was downloaded in the background.
I designed a Digital Coach feature for RVPs or Field Reps to develop their own programs to share with New Reps. Helping them grow their business.
Once I set the focus and design direction for the product, I took action to document how various components and patterns would work for the Primerica Mobile App. The requirements helped establish a system for design and content management.
I defined how IBM’s web content management system would dynamically populate the components of various web/mobile page views. Additionally, I wrote the front-end HTML and CSS code to support integration with IBM Web Content.
Having led a significant portion of the work required to develop the Primerica Online Mobile app, I was tasked with co-presenting to an estimated 300 representatives at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA.
I created a plan to encourage the use of Google Analytics to track usage of the Primerica Online Mobile app. This was a new practice in the department that helped establish baseline practices for measuring performance.
In this role, I filled the gap in Product Management processes, working end-to-end, while wearing multiple hats.
I reduced the timeline by 3-4 months by working on a tactical plan to implement and deliver incremental value and learnings.
I leveraged my experience partnering with IBM, shaping how content would be managed internally and training other internal associates on the system.