Financial Services Project Summary:

Concept Testing of a Weather Alerts Feature for GEICO’s Mobile App

A GEICO product team needed to decide whether to build a new mobile app feature. We led qualitative concept testing and delivered actionable findings related to concept value and design.

Goals

Hurricanes, floods, hail, and other severe weather can cause significant damage to vehicles and homes. With this in mind, GEICO’s mobile app product team recently explored a new feature: severe weather alert push notifications.

The team needed user research to help it decide whether to build this new feature and, if so, how best to design and implement it. Their specific research goals included:

  • Assess the strengths and weaknesses of severe weather push notifications in other mobile apps
  • Interview GEICO mobile users to capture their reactions to a concept that simulated severe weather alerts from GEICO
  • Identify areas where personalization might improve the alert experience and value proposition for customers

Approach

Based on GEICO’s goals, Marketade led a qualitative research study with the following steps:

  • Recruited 2 types of participants: users of GEICO’s mobile app and users of other apps with weather alerts
  • Created interview scripts for each audience, including scenarios for both groups to use a concept prototype simulating GEICO weather alerts
  • Moderated 8 one-on-one concept testing sessions via Zoom
  • Analyzed the research and identified patterns and insights
  • Presented and delivered a 26-page deck with research highlights, findings, and recommendations

Outputs

Out of this concept research study, the mobile product team left with::

  • 3 actionable findings related to the concept’s value to users
  • 3 actionable findings related to notification style
  • 3 actionable findings related to feature design and implementation
  • 5 specific recommendations, including design solutions and additional concept testing

About the Project

  • Industry: Financial services
  • Audience type: Consumers
  • Research area: Discovery & UX
  • Methods: Concept testing
  • Length: 4 weeks
  • Primary stakeholder: UX and product teams
  • Company size: Over 25,000 employees

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