DUAL Group + DUAL Ireland B2B Corporate Brochure Website Refresh
Yolande St.Ville
Project Overview
ABOUT DUAL
DUAL is one of the world’s largest international underwriting agencies and also one of Lloyd’s largest international coverholders. DUAL is part of Howden Group Holdings, an international insurance group with employee ownership at its heart. Howden Group Holdings was founded in 1994 and operates in 45 territories and employs around 10,500 people.
THE PROJECT
In July 2022, I was brought onto the central London-based marketing team to help undertake the complex task of redesigning their website, working in a cross functional team that included marketers, products owners, developers and a UX designer.
In order to help DUAL achieve the goal of becoming the largest and best underwriting agency in the world, I focused on leveraging user research, data and internal stakeholder feedback to help improve their website and increase brand awareness.
The project was broken down into two parts. STAGE 1. Focus on optimizing the Irish site in time for Meet the Market Day, an insurance industry event in mid September, where traffic was expected to surge. STAGE 2. Focus on the International / Group site and what changes could be made to improve UX and UI.
Before + After
HERO
TYPOGRAPHY AND TYPESCALE
FOOTER
CONTENT DESIGN
Final Designs
Redesigned landing page of the DUAL Ireland website.
+150% page visitors
Redesigned DUAL Group Cyber and Health insurance product pages on the DUAL Group website.
+150% page visitors
The design process
An overview of my contributions to the project and what I achieved:
“Drawing on my knowledge and experience from previous projects like the Maniere de Voir website re-design and the GA Match AI mobile dating app, I approached this project with a user-centric UX mindset and a strong strategy.
I reviewed the current website and interacted with stakeholders to find out where the problems lay, researched and analysed the B2B, insurance industry and corporate world, learning about design trends and best practices, then proposed design solutions that aligned with the company's mission and goals and project scope, whilst advocating for UX best practices along the way.
Finally, I iterated on the designs keeping in mind user research, best practices, internal research and testing and stakeholder feedback. This was successful because key stakeholders commented on how my suggestions and designs much improved the UX of the website. ”
1. Heuristic evaluation
UX / UI
The first task I undertook on this project was to complete a heuristic evaluation. I created a Figjam board, noting best practices, violations and how the designs could be adjusted.
One of the changes I noted and suggested that was later adopted by the dev team was the type scale. I used the material design guideline system to improve accessibility and readability on the site.
2. Competitor Analysis
USER RESEARCH
I was solely responsible for the competitor analysis. I researched various group and industry trends, noting which designs were strong and weak according to UX best principles and created a SWOT matrix. I then presented my findings to my team.
3. Stakeholder Interviews
USER RESEARCH
The first task I undertook on this project was to complete a heuristic evaluation. I created a Figjam boad, noting best practices, violations and how the designs could be adjusted.
One of the changes I noted and suggested that was later adopted by the dev team was the type scale. I used the material design guideline system to improve accessibility and readability on the site.
4. Brand Style guide
GRAPHIC DESIGN
We had an agency created brand style guide. I was jointly responsible for re-creating this in Figma.
5. Figma Design System
UX / UI
Since all websites were developed and designed using a CMS, our team did not have any form of non-code design documentation apart from the print guidelines.
I used the browser extensions 'CSS Peeper and smart page ruler to create pixel perfect replica of the codebase style guide in Figma. I created variants and components and later used these for the prototypes.
6. Data Analysis and Persona
User Research
I used Google Analytics (3) to review 6 months of website data for the Group level website to identify important metrics like most used device, age, country and where our users came from (new vs returning).
The data was very different to what we had thought. I then used this information to created user personas and presented it to my team.
7. Wireframes and Prototypes
UX / UI
I was solely responsible for, wire framing and prototyping. I redesigned the product pages using the components I had created for the design system, and updated the page layout. I then presented this to different teams and iterated based on stakeholder feedback.
8. Project Prioritization
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
The project was collaborative effort between different teams and at one stage became very complex with different people suggesting ideas and there not being a central document to keep track of ideas, timelines and goals.
During the process I advocated for a central prioritization document to keep track of ideas and the impact it would have. This was implemented
Project Review
The DUAL Ireland website re-fresh was successfully delivered in time for the 2022 meet the market day event. The long-term DUAL Group refresh continues.
Designed by Yolande St.Ville 2022.
