We designed a plan selection experience to decrease the mental load for users making complicated choices about pet insurance coverage.
company
Pumpkin Pet Insurance
role
Product Designer
collaborator
Steven Abraham
background
Deciding on a pet insurance plan is a complex choice for users, and Pumpkin’s current plan selection experience isn’t doing anything to help them navigate it. Currently, users must manipulate toggles to see the prices for twelve different annual limit and deductible combinations. For many users, the plan selection screen is their first exposure to how pet insurance plans are sold and priced, making it one of the most vital screens in purchase flow.
Pumpkin’s current plan selection experience
research
We wanted to find out how users were interacting with the plan selection module, and we were curious about how competitors were tackling the experience, so our research approach was two pronged. First we conducted a round of moderated user testing, and then we did a comprehensive audit of twelve competitors in the pet insurance space.
hypothesis
If we serve users three pre-set combinations rather than giving them annual limit and deductible toggles, we can lighten the users’ mental load, capture users that may otherwise be lost to sticker shock, and increase overall conversion.
three plans
We decided that we would choose three combinations to show users. We would default recommend them a popular mid-priced plan and then include a lower priced option and a more expensive option. The lower priced option would hopefully appeal to users that would’ve otherwise experienced sticker shock, and the higher priced option would mostly serve to highlight the value of the mid-priced option.
choosing the combinations
We conducted surveys to validate our early design iterations, and learned that when shown three plans, the majority of users chose the plan in the second position. For the final designs, we used Pumpkin’s take-rate data to choose the three combinations we would show the user. We worked with the creative marketing team to name the pre-set combinations. When the user lands on the page, the plan in the second position is selected by default.
custom plan flow
We wanted to make sure users still had the opportunity to customize a plan if they wanted to, so we took care to design a flow that felt seamlessly integrated with the pre-set plans.
Entering the custom field
When the user opens the custom plan field, the default selections on the annual limit and deductible toggles will reflect whatever plan the user had most recently selected.
Exiting the custom field
If the user decides to select a pre-set plan after making selections in the custom field, the inactive state for the custom plan will reflect their last selections.
project status
These designs were handed off to engineers in October 2023, to be built by the end of the quarter. We worked with the product team to establish learning goals and aligned with the data team to make sure we had the ability to track all pertinent metrics. The team plans to A/B test this plan selection experience against the current experience at the beginning of 2024.
challenges
Selecting a combination of limit and deductible is a key touchpoint in the Pumpkin customer journey, so there were rightfully a lot of eyes on this project. As we were designing this experience, we were juggling business goals, product goals, and brand identity goals. We came up with over forty iterations of the plan selection experience over the course of the quarter, and although it was sometimes hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, I am really proud of what we came up with. I anxiously await the results of the test!