A Voice for Design in Insurance
Insurance and design aren’t typically seen as closely related. Insurance is business-oriented, which doesn’t evoke thoughts of cutting-edge technology, rich interactions, or beautiful visual experiences. And one could be forgiven for thinking that design doesn’t have much to offer actuaries, adjusters and sales executives who often live in spreadsheets, databases and presentations. The insurance industry doesn’t need ‘fancy design.’
But… we see things differently.
Within Guidewire’s design team, we see how trust is engendered by well-designed products. Trust that an application or process will do the job. Trust that the experience of using our products will be seamless from one solution to another. Most importantly, we see that you must trust the system to deliver the results you need, when you need them, to ensure your customers are satisfied.
We also see how a user-centric design process and deliberate aesthetics help improve the experiences of insurance professionals, their customers, and the bottom line. Optimizing a process will save everyone time, which can be directly tied to financial savings. When screens are designed with accessibility as well as aesthetics in mind, we can reduce both mental and physical strain — an important consideration for those of us who spend considerable amounts of time in front of screens.
Many of us at Guidewire have worked within the insurance industry at one time or another. This experience has helped us develop empathy for the community we serve. We continually strive to understand it better through various outreach efforts, such as visiting our customers, conducting user research, and most recently holding Customer Initiative Council sessions during our annual conference, Connections.
We have lived and breathed the insurance industry so that we can craft useful, efficient, intuitive and delightful experiences for those of you who work in this space every day. Guidewire’s User Experience team consists of an interdisciplinary group of designers, researchers, and specialists in UX writing and accessibility. We hope to educate, inform, and inspire by sharing the story of our design journey, because we all benefit when delightful and empowering designs are at the heart of every insurance experience.
Please join us here on Medium as we explore designing and building solutions for our customers’ complex insurance needs.
