The Product
Kalkulátor.cz is a comparison website for the Czech market in energies and insurance. The product is designed to work differently to other comparing services on the market – not asking the customer for their number and then calling them but helping them to make the right choice themselves. In addition to that, Kalkulátor.cz is built to keep a relationship with the customers for the long term – reminding them when the right time to switch is, looking out for their bills, and recommending them the best products for them. Check it out here!
The Challenge
I have been part of the project from the very beginning, responsible for most of the design and product decisions that have been taken. The product (and the whole start-up) is meant to be as customer-centric as possible.
The Start
That’s why we’ve taken the discover – define – design – create – test – start again approach. The very first step was a quantitative questionnaire distributed to several hundred persons (using an agency). Based on the results, the whole team (of approx. 5 people) kicked off the project with a design workshop, where the first features were picked and where the core product of the energy section started taking shape.
Once we finalised the first draft, it was my task to create the first prototypes, and to test them again – this time face to face with potential users. Based on these tests (and after countless iterations), it was time to build the MVP!
Launch of the MVP
After several months of testing and developing (a big part of the project is a unique dedicated engine that calculates all available energy tariffs in the Czech Republic), it was time for a launch! In the buildup to it, it was my responsibility to oversee the UI designer (the UI was designed by a dedicated UI designer), to make sure we have a good design system that will allow us further development and - most importantly - to keep testing the final designs with potential users.
A/B Testing
After the launch, it was time to test the whole project in real life – that’s why the first few months were spent with several different a/b/c tests in which we’ve tested several hypotheses we had while we were building the product. Luckily it turned out that the original solution held up very well, which was confirmed not only by the A/B testing but also with data from Analytics, Hotjar, and with the feedback from our back-office who talked to most customers.
The UI Redesign
Once we’ve launched and tested the MVP, we started spending more time on the brand of the product and created a new look and feel. While the original version was already built on a robust design system (using the atomic design model), the redesign allowed us to fix all components that have changed during the development of the MVP and weren’t fully consistent. In cooperation with a UI designer, I was responsible for co-creating and overseeing all components from the UI point of view (closely co-working with the front-end developers).
Phase 2: Insurance
Straight after the redesign, the next chapter of the project was started – car insurance. Even with taking into account all the lessons learned (and knowing how our customers tend to behave), it was time to start from scratch again – as the world of insurance differs from the world of utilities so much. After going through the whole cycle again though, I was able to create a unique experience that brought several new aspects to the market (obviously with a lot of help from the whole team). Right now, we are building the next phase that will allow customers to insure their cars completely online (which is very unusual for comparison sites on the market) and we already have a pipeline full of further enhancements!
