Cyber Sage x Identity Force
Educating users via interactive content and gamification
UX/UI Designer
IdentityForce (IF) is one of the largest providers of identity theft protection (ITP) software in the industry. Their customers range from private consumers, to businesses and a variety of government agencies.
Over the course of two weeks, our team conceptualized a branded content micro-site with the aim of encouraging customers to take small actions that help them be more proactive in their own identity protection.
Team Members
Freddy Chen | Seemin Masood | Esther Kim | Jahla Pope
Tools
Sketch | Figma | Invision | Miro | Google Suite
Understanding business goal(s)
With identity theft already on the rise prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has seemingly never been a better time to invest in ITP.
We wanted to ensure we understood the ITP marketplace and IF’s respective positioning. We conducted a competitive feature analysis, researched a number of industry whitepapers, and ultimately discovered that:
IF is a big fish in a slowly growing pond.
Validating our initial assumptions
As identity theft is a problem impacting consumers of all ages, we interviewed a wide variety of users with equally varying degrees of experience and exposure to identity theft. Some of our biggest takeaways were that:
Over
60%
of users had already experienced some form or incident of identity theft.
Despite
88%
of users not saving personal identifying information (PII) with autocomplete or form-filling features.
Yet
0%
of our users had any intent to purchase ITP unless they had greater financial assets OR another theft occurred.
Deciding to pivot or not to pivot
It was evident our users harbored surprising doubts about ITP software. To break that perception, our team referenced products that hid learning within more engaging mechanics such as Duolingo and Buzzfeed quizzes.
The team came to the conclusion to design a gamified, unique micro-site experience and quiz for IF… right up until we discovered IF’s existing quiz.
Site Redesign and UX Overhaul
Can leverage existing style guide and information architecture
Little to no tech debt incurred or resource cost
Endemic user flow
New Micro-site and New Quiz
Can design new experience and user flow to fulfill business goal without compromise
Potentially significant resource investment and cost
Testing our way to clarity
The team eventually hit a point where we could see the merits of either idea and we couldn’t decide what direction to take. To break the stalemate, we decided to usability test the existing quiz.
We asked users to find the quiz and a specific article from the IF homepage.
Users averaged over
4 min
to find the quiz and a specific article due to the confusing hierarchy of information on the IF homepage.
“This quiz hasn’t told me anything particularly new or how to fix anything. It just says I’m at risk of identity theft and suggests I call an [IF] agent.”
“I don’t understand how this yes no [quiz] format is helpful or supposed to help me learn anything.”
New Micro-site and New Quiz it is!
Key advantages that played a critical role in our decision:
1) Lets the team develop a new brand largely free of association from IF
2) Allows the team to stay true to the original business goal of informing customers about preventative best practices rather than needing to sell IF products to them
Balancing information with ease of use
Low fidelity wireframes iterating on progress bar design as well as displaying answers after every question
Dots provided faster understanding of how many questions were left vs using percentages
Also experimented with displaying the questions all together instead of one at a time
Decided on one question at a time to allow users to spend more time understanding the answer(s)
Moving into mid-fidelity, we also tried implementing a “Previous Question” button and adjusting answer selection to bubbles to match the progress bar’s design.
Defining a visual identity
During usability testing of the early high-fidelity prototype, users found it difficult to tell if their answer was correct or not.
As a result, we revised the answer heading and colors to reflect if their selection was correct or incorrect and changed the pie chart’s colors to match.
Selected hero screens
Committing to final design
Moving forward, our team would want to evaluate and test the actual utility of the forum and browser extension features. We would also like to implement an algorithm in the quiz to allow for more customized personality results.
Throughout the process, our team routinely checked in with one another to make sure we were all aligned on the same ideas. I’m confident we have produced a design that every member is proud of and feels accountable for in some way.
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