Erie Insurance: making the UX team's work visible

Erie's UX team did good work that most of the company never saw. I wanted to change that. I made storyboards, design presentations and UI showcases that showed what our team did and how it helped every division.

Client: Erie Insurance
Discipline: UX & Research · Brand Systems

Champion the UX brand

Two team members take a selfie beside a set of blue rocket-shaped cutouts.

Creative direction: the e-signature film

The film. I wrote the storyboard, designed the scene and directed the shoot on location with actors. The film shows our e-signature feature through a real customer moment. It also shows how we work: personas, wireframes and a team solving problems together.

ERIE e-signature film (1:11)

Team & credits

Animator: George Lippert
Key grip: Jason Stewart
Film coordinator: Mandy Goodwill
Creative Director: Jaemi Aoh
Actors, in order of appearance: Jennifer Towell, Colin Kimball and Kristina Pezell

Custom pattern library

I helped build Erie’s pattern library. I applied current WCAG accessibility rules to each pattern and component. Then we reviewed every one as a team before it shipped.

Pattern library: anatomy of a 'Delete driver?' confirmation box, labeling header, icon, body and buttons.

Pattern library colors: primary blues, secondary gold, tertiary aqua, plus alert, grey and text swatches.

Pattern library: the Erie Insurance website footer, with link columns and contact options.

Pattern library type scale: Gotham SSm weights and heading sizes from h1 (64px) down to h6.

Pattern library: large and small carousel components promoting structure coverage.

Pattern library: success, warning, error and info messages in large, medium and small sizes.

New policy endorsement

This system replaced Erie’s outdated auto policy platform. It cut out errors and duplicate steps for agents working with new and existing policyholders. Built-in search and verification help them get each submission right.

A woman with short dark hair smiles at the foot of a staircase.

Journey map, 'the Agent Experience': agent steps and screens across policy stages. Full text below.

Full text: the Agent Experience journey map

Agent login. Using pathways that make sense: AgentExchange.com.
Listening to our agents. This is how we work! Business Auto Policy Change Request (start here).
Agent capabilities. Creating change policy requests: the agent initiates location changes, vehicle changes and driver changes.
Agent review and submission. A guided review for our agents: the agent reviews the detailed request, adds a note (impacts timeline) and submits the request.
Confirmation messaging. Confirms the policy change request.

Rows for each step: journey steps, program descriptions, actions (what the agent does) and application functionality (add, delete, edit, PDF view and attach files).

Journey map, 'the Processing Experience': processing steps and system screens across stages. Full text below.

Full text: the Processing Experience journey map

Where we started?
Listening to our processors. This is how we work! The processor searches for the agent’s policy change request.
Agent review and submission. A guided review for our agents:
- The agent reviews the detailed request.
- Self-assigned; impacts timeline.
- The processor adds a note.
- The processor completes the task.

Rows for each step: journey steps, program descriptions, actions (what the customer does, what information they look for, and their context) and application functionality (add, add note, delete, edit and attach files).

Custom touchpanels

I redesigned the Crestron touchpanel screens with Erie’s patterns and logos.

Crestron touch-panel spec: source buttons for Wyse, laptop, doc camera, Blu-ray and two cable TV feeds.

Touch-panel UI sheet: buttons, sliders, keypads and icons for Erie's conference-room system.

For Erie’s new Thomas B. Hagen building and select executive conference rooms, I designed a custom touchpanel pattern library for our vendor to build from.