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Insurance / Enterprise Operations · 2016

Transforming Complex Underwriting Rules into an Intuitive Decision-Making Experience

Partnered with underwriting, business, and technology teams to redesign a rules-engine application used to evaluate policy eligibility and risk. Through user interviews, stakeholder workshops, and collaborative discovery sessions, the solution simplified complex decision workflows, improved usability, and enabled underwriters to make faster, more informed decisions with greater confidence.

⚠ NDAUX ResearchEnterprise UXRules Engine DesignStakeholder WorkshopsWorkflow Optimisation
RoleUX Designer
Timeline2016
PlatformWeb · Desktop

Project Overview

Challenge
Underwriters relied on a rules-engine application with complex business logic, large volumes of policy data, and multiple decision paths, but the interface offered little clarity, making confident and efficient decisions difficult.
Objective
Simplify decision workflows, improve the visibility of eligibility criteria, and reduce cognitive load for underwriters working under high accuracy and time pressure.
Solution
Restructured information architecture, simplified workflow navigation, and improved rules visibility, developed collaboratively with underwriting, business, and engineering teams.
Outcome
Improved workflow efficiency, reduced cognitive load, better cross-functional alignment, and greater user confidence in complex decision-making.

The Challenge

Understanding the problem

Underwriters relied on a rules-engine application to assess eligibility and determine policy outcomes. The platform contained complex business logic, large volumes of policy data, multiple decision paths, and high accuracy requirements. Users needed to make confident decisions quickly while navigating intricate workflows and regulatory constraints, but the interface offered little support for understanding the logic underpinning those decisions.

Research & Discovery

What we uncovered

User interviewsStakeholder workshopsWorkflow analysisProcess mappingRequirements discovery sessions

Key Findings

Users spent significant time navigating between related information, breaking task continuity
Decision logic lacked transparency, underwriters couldn't easily understand why a rule applied
Critical information was difficult to prioritise within dense, data-heavy screens
Complex workflows increased cognitive load, slowing decisions and raising the risk of error

Strategy & Approach

Design principles

Decision Visibility
Surface eligibility criteria and rule logic clearly so underwriters could understand outcomes, not just act on them.
Workflow Simplicity
Reduce unnecessary navigation and consolidate related information to support task continuity across complex multi-step workflows.
Information Priority
Structure screens around what matters most at each decision point, reducing the scanning effort needed to act confidently.
Collaborative Design
Work directly with underwriting, business, and technical teams throughout, ensuring business logic was accurately reflected in the interface.

Process

How we got there

01
Stakeholder Discovery
Workshops with underwriting, product, and engineering to align on goals, constraints, and success criteria
02
User Interviews
In-depth sessions with underwriters to understand workflows, pain points, and mental models
03
Workflow Analysis
Mapped existing task flows to identify friction points and navigation overhead
04
Process Mapping
Documented decision paths and business logic to inform information architecture
05
Concept Development
Explored structural approaches to simplify key workflows and improve information hierarchy
06
Prototyping
Low and mid-fidelity prototypes tested against real underwriting scenarios
07
Validation & Refinement
Iterative reviews with underwriting and technical teams to validate decisions and refine details

Solution

What we built

Simplified Workflow Navigation

Simplified Workflow Navigation

Reduced unnecessary navigation between related screens and improved task continuity, allowing underwriters to move through evaluations without losing context.

Prioritised Decision Information

Prioritised Decision Information

Restructured information based on decision impact and task stage, ensuring the most critical data was prominent at every step of the underwriting workflow.

Improved Rules Visibility

Improved Rules Visibility

Made eligibility criteria and rule outcomes easier to understand, giving underwriters transparency into the logic driving decisions rather than opaque pass/fail results.

Collaborative Design Approach

Collaborative Design Approach

Maintained continuous alignment between business, underwriting, and technical stakeholders throughout, ensuring the final solution accurately reflected operational requirements.

My Role

Contributions & ownership

Research
  • User interviews
  • Stakeholder workshops
  • Discovery sessions
Analysis
  • Workflow mapping
  • Process analysis
  • Requirements synthesis
UX Design
  • Information architecture
  • Workflow optimisation
  • Prototype development
Collaboration
  • Underwriting teams
  • Product owners
  • Engineering teams

Outcomes & Impact

Results that speak

↑
Improved workflow efficiency — users navigated and completed evaluations more effectively
↓
Reduced cognitive load — clearer information hierarchy improved decision-making
+
Better stakeholder alignment — research-driven discussions unified business and technical teams
⍟
Enhanced user confidence — improved transparency supported more informed underwriting decisions

Reflection

What I learned

For enterprise applications, usability is often less about visual design and more about helping users understand complex information quickly. Deep collaboration with domain experts was essential to translating business logic into intuitive experiences, without that partnership, it would have been impossible to design something that reflected how underwriters actually think.