AvivaUSA.com

I spent three years working on Aviva USA's web properties. AvivaUSA.com was their public-facing website. Before I joined the team, the website had been designed by an external agency and internal graphic designers created all images.

Not content with just creating graphics, I expanded my responsibilities.

• User testing was conducted quarterly by a vendor. I would attend the user testing sessions and make suggestions for improvement afterwards.

• I participated in the advisory board for the website where we proposed and prioritized roadmap items.

• I advocated for live text instead of images with text, working with the Web Specialist on the team to update components in the CMS.

• The site design made heavy use of drop shadow images that were all fixed-width and in the HTML code. I rewrote the code to use CSS background images and gradients which decreased the load time of the site pages.

• On the homepage, I simplified the account login.

• I also reworked the site footer to include more helpful links.

• As our use of social media increased, I added sharing functionality and links to Aviva’s social pages.

• I introduced the idea of Responsive Web Design, but the company wasn’t yet ready for a big redesign.

Connect With an Agent

Business Goal: The intent behind this page was to connect people who were just starting out their insurance planning journey with a financial professional who could sell Aviva’s products. A creative agency had designed a tool where a person could put in their zip code to see a list of insurance agents in the area.

User Feedback: In reality, the finder didn’t work very well.

• The data behind it was poor.

• Customers would not always get a response from the agent they contacted.

• Existing policy owners used the tool expecting to be contacted by their existing insurance agent, but were surprised to be contacted by a new agent trying to sell them a product.

• People were reluctant to connect with an agent because they anticipated a hard sell to follow.

Solution:

• We renamed the page “Connect with an Agent” and adjusted the content to reduce confusion.

• We combined separate web forms into one dynamic contact form, allowing us to funnel issues to the appropriate area of the company.

• We changed internal process to funnel requests to the internal Sales desk. They would refer leads to select agents who had a track record of providing good service.

• We created content to help potential customers understand the services an agent can provide, and featured profiles on some of our top agents to humanize them.

I created wireframes of the pages to show the flow through the content. For the final design, I used icons and visual elements to break up the text and add visual interest. I wrote the HTML and CSS for the pages, and provided input on the form fields.

Youmanity

 “Youmanity” was a corporate responsibility initiative that had three ongoing campaigns. Youmanity tokens were wooden nickels that could be passed on with good deeds and tracked through social media. Street to School was a global initiative for Aviva, and Insuring a Future allowed agents to nominate people who faced a loss without life insurance. I was involved in pretty much any Youmanity project, as it usually included website updates, lead generation forms, social media content and email campaigns.