Overview

Challenge

I was approached by a partner with a project for Alta Actuaries.  He provided me with the logo from the client and the copy for the app and explained to me what the client wanted.  The challenge was to create an app for the client that would enable them to collect new leads of senior benefits managers at multinational companies.  The app needed to provide important general information of several countries, including their benefits, such as retirement plans, group insurance, healthcare, employment and working conditions and more. By providing this valuable information for 15 countries, the objective was to then have users (senior benefits managers at multinational companies) request for reports on any other country they desired.  The app also needed to provide information with the services provided by Alta.

 UNDERSTAND

Evaluation

The client provided me with the information for the countries and company info for the app but I wanted to get a better understanding of what a senior manager might need to know before sending employees to other countries.

RESEARCH

Competitive Analysis

There are many websites that give you some information on things to consider when planning to send employees abroad, but there are no apps with this information.  One example of helpful information was a pdf file you could download from MetLife that included information on global employee benefits.  I also found expatica.com which gives you quite a bit of information on the countries’ healthcare amongst a lot of other subjects such as scenic spots to visit and cuisine.

RESEARCH

Questions

The most prominent concern amongst senior management for the employees working abroad was access to local medical coverage for themselves and their families in the country they were working in.

The second most pressing issue that came up is that it is necessary to go on many sites to get information about sending employees to another country making it hard to even decide, which service to use.

Concerns for senior managers when sending employees abroad:

What will the cost be for benefits?

What other expenses will there be besides salary and medical coverage?

Effects on pay and taxes?

Retirement and pension plans?  What is the retirement age in the new country?

How to make sure the expansion plan succeeds?

Will the employee stay in the new country long enough to succeed?

Will the employee adapt to the new culture?

Will there be a language barrier at times?

What is the plan to bring the employee home in case of an emergency in the new country?

ANALYSIS

Data Synthesis

In order to understand our user’s needs, frustrations and goals, I took all the information I gathered and began by creating an affinity map.  This helped me put together a persona and empathy map, which revealed the direction on how to start planning and designing the app so that it would include the important information from Alta Actuaries and be easy for the user to view, learn and request more information.

BRAINSTORMING

Ideation Process

With an understanding of what users are looking for, I came up with the following MVPs:   

• Filter of countries in order to easily choose the country of interest. 
• Easy navigation from the country home page as shown for France and easy navigation from page to page within each country’s info pages and country’s homepage. 
• Easy access from every page in order to request reports from any country not listed in the app. 
• Easy navigation in the footer to go from the “Choose Country” page, the “About Alta” page and Privacy.

DESIGN

Sketching and Wireframes

With the MVPs and sitemap, I then began to sketch prototypes of the Task Flow.  I did some user testing, which aided in getting the navigation so smooth within the country section and then the Alta section.