Contact Directory for Independent Insurance Agents
An example of my work enhancing the contact directory our indepenent insurance agents use to contact people.
Introduction
A property and casualty insurance company provides a company contact directory to independent insurance agents. Independent agents use the directory to find various people within the company. The previous contact directory provided lists of names, phone numbers, and email addresses. Agents reported difficulties using the contact directory to find people. A small project was started to enhance the contact directory.
Methods
Five steps were conducted to complete the work:
- Gather input from users and other sources about the existing contact directory
- Compare the existing contact directory with other contact directories
- Create mockups for a new contact directory
- Review mockups with stakeholders
- User test the mockups or an early version of the system with agents
Design
Agents said they wanted to see the contacts for their territory, filter by specialty, and have access to a person's manager. The design for the new contact directory incorporated their input. First, agents will see the contacts for their territory labeled as "My contacts". Second, agents can search and filter by speciality to find the right person. Third, each person has a profile page that provides information about their team and their manager.
Comparison with other contact directories showed that many others were more dynamic. They enabled the user to find a person by searching and filtering the directory. Some also used card layouts and provided images to provide information about each person. Based on the comprison we confirmed that we will provide search and filter functionality and we decided that we will provide images of the contacts.
The design artifacts can not be shared publicly online at this time.
Results
The design has not been reviewed with stakeholders or tested with users. The results can be reported at a later date.