read more

Stronger Together: Insurance for Gen Z

Stronger Together is a prototype for the a new insurance service centered around support communities of people with shared identities.

Our concept—a mobile app coupled with a new insurance business model—offers users greater personalization of their insurance benefits while connecting them to communities of similar people for support.

This product is the result of a one-week-long design sprint with IDEO CoLab, where I served as one of two UX designers on our team of five designers and industry professionals. I learned an incredible amount as a designer, collaborator, and leader - see my journey.

Our team posing for a group photo with branded zoom backgrounds I designed.

Day 1: The Team, The Brief, and User Research

My first day started out overwhelming. Although I’d worked alongside engineers before, this was my first time working with professional designers. Additionally, I had no prior experience with insurance, business model creation, and service design - so I was nervous about how I could contribute.

Each member of our team brought a unique set of skills and experience to the table, including:

  1. Gian Pangaro, creative director of IDEO CoLab, experienced UX designer, and our team guide;
  2. Selma Durand, an industrial designer @ IDEO skilled with ideation and product messaging;
  3. Nic Mikhov, representative from NASDAQ and an experienced project manager;
  4. & Uzair Rashid, representative from Blue Cross Blue Shield and a health insurance industry veteran.

Our team's project for the week was to design insurance for Gen Z. We began by collaborating to generate assumptions and questions about our target demographic based on our brief with the intent to research answers. However, I worried research would not accurately reflect the variety of my generation's experiences; so I took the initiative to call several friends for informal user research interviews.

On each call, I asked open-ended questions about my friends' experiences with insurance, and allowed their stories to guide all followup questions; subtly pushing them towards answering our critical assumptions without directly prompting unnatural answers. I then compiled this into a short fact list to report out to the team.

Our initial questions & assumptions coupled with my user research results.

Day 2: How Might We's, Ideation, and Synthesis

Description coming soon!

Our brainstorming process from How Might We creation through to down-selected concepts to explore.

Day 3: Prototyping, User Interviews, & Downselecting

Description coming soon!

A prototype I made to explore insurance centered around surrendering personal data for dicounts and social impact.

Day 4: Design, Showcase, & Feedback

Description coming soon!

Our final prototype. Stronger Together: Insurance centered around support communities of people with shared identities.

Day 5: Improvements, Presentation, and Reflection

Description coming soon!

Footage of me presenting Stronger Together on zoom to the other teams.