Giving a home and auto insurance provider a “voice.”
Who: Travelers Insurance
What: Alexa skill, concept and implementation
Role: Experience Lead
Part I: The situation
Seeking to understand the value of voice
Like many companies today, Travelers Insurance wanted to use the Alexa platform but were unsure where to focus their energy. They turned to us to understand how to deliver value to consumers through voice.
The goal was to deliver a compelling experience that would build brand perception, while also giving the brand an overarching voice strategy to guide future efforts.
My role
Experience Lead
Figured out where the opportunities were to engage consumers through voice
Ideated and created concepts, based on foundational principles we established
Partnered with content strategy team to assess and leverage existing site content
Ensured structure and flow had a natural, conversational feel
Created a detailed decision tree of the experience, including logic branching, functional annotations, and analytics/metrics to track
Facilitated user testing, and put the findings into practice
Worked closely with developers to ensure technical feasibility
Defined timeline and scope
Our mission
Users need a compelling reason to engage with voice content on a regular basis. Our mission was to stand out in the crowded Alexa marketplace, providing utility and value for consumers around a less-than-seductive topic—home safety.
Content strategy inputs
Early IA exercise
The many challenges of voice
An emerging technology
In 2019, the number of Alexa skills in the US surpassed 100,000. But voice as a technology is still in its infancy, with brands and developers unsure how to capitalize on it.
Limited use cases
Most of the popular Alexa skills are tied to existing mobile apps, meaning they extend—rather than offer new—functionality. Also, our research showed most people stick to basic Alexa functions (reminders, weather, and music).
Making voice make sense
We needed to create something that made more sense as a voice UI than as a classic visual interface. But one obvious solution, a voice-enabled claims process, was off the table for this initial project.
Flow diagram outlining early thinking around a home safety assessment
Part II: The approach
Ideating to find purpose
Through an assessment of Travelers’ existing Alexa skill and the overall skill landscape, as well as mining their robust content, we defined a series of opportunity areas and criteria for assessing value.
The common theme of the different skill styles we encountered was active learning, leveraging the natural interactivity of conversation to facilitate education.
So, we pursued three avenues: scenario-based learning, gamified quizzes, and interactive modules with a tangible output. We proofed each across three core topic areas—home, driving, and weather—that aligned to the client’s existing and well-thought-out content strategy.
Evaluation criteria
Voice-suitable. Voice interactions add value to the task at hand.
Meaningful. Adds value to consumers’ lives and meets a real need.
Broad. For all consumers, not just existing customers.
Long-term. Can be used more than once.
Engaging. Interests and captivates.
Snippets from the final decision tree
When designing a voice experience, there are many different paths the conversation can take. We outlined them all with a massive decision tree that mapped out every branch and permutation, specified the underpinning logic, and accounted for personalized content based on whether the user owns or rents and lives in a house or apartment.
From concept to concrete content
Building on our initial concept work and iterations, we turned to the task of detailed design for an MVP launch. Working with the client, we decided to build an interactive voice model that showed people how safe (or unsafe) their home environment is.
We mined Travelers’ well-curated content for the strongest home safety topics, categorized it, and assessed the emerging themes.
Our designs got better and better with multiple rounds of creation, user testing, and iteration. We were able to keep improving subtleties in phrasing and constantly consider how users were engaging with our work.
The final Alexa skill helps users assess their home’s overall safety and how prepared they are for emergencies, and gives them a checklist to improve their situation.
Part III: The result
The sounds of success
With a recently-launched MVP experience, we will be monitoring engagement metrics to dictate future iterations. In the interim, we plan to weave in content from additional home safety topics and introduce new styles of modules to test engagement.
The client was so impressed with our work that they engaged us to create a two-year roadmap for their voice strategy—then help them achieve it.
My takeaway
I was energized by this project—my first one designing a voice interface. Due to the infancy of voice, I not only had to unpack what it meant to design without any interface, I also had to develop the process for doing so as I went.
All in all, it reinforced my belief that being a creative, strategic thinker equips you to tackle any problem and define a compelling solution.