Define

Understand

The firm was in the process of transitioning from a branch-based model, to a cloud-based model. The Will user journey was paper based and needed to be cross sold as a service to and from app-based services such as Property Law and Family Law.

Clients were not responding to the cross-selling efforts of the sales teams, due to the clunky and inefficient nature of a paper-based process.

Making a Will is a deeply personal and complex process, therefore digitising and automating the UX would be equally complex.

The Problem

The firm had expanded significantly on its technical innovation in the property department, but the Wills department needed to be innovated.

The lack of digital and innovative offerings within the Wills department was substantially restricting the growth of the firm.

The Goals

The firm had expanded significantly on its technical innovation in the property department, but the Wills department needed to be innovated.

The lack of digital and innovative offerings within the Wills department was substantially restricting the growth of the firm.

Research

Education

Typically, the people making a Will are people of retirement age, people who are buying their first home, or people who have recently been impacted by the legal implications of the death of a loved one.

Research showed that 31 million adults in the UK don’t have a Will in place, and 62% of 45-54 year olds hadn’t even thought about making a Will.

Making a Will is something that a lot of people put off and don’t organically prioritise, so that brought an additional challenge to the next steps - how do we make people prioritise something that they don’t know they need?

Market

Looking at the market, we found that a lot of companies are popping up, offering a fully digital experience when making a Will, yet none were SRA regulated as Will writing is not a regulated service.
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Their user journeys were simple, but very little education was given to enhance their client’s legal literacy.
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Commonly, the language used was simple, plain english, and clearly geared toward people who are making a Will for the first time, or the first time in a long time.

Personas

The First Time Buyer
24 - 35 | Homeowner | Existing Client

The First Time Buyer is likely to have very few assets of signifiant value. The property that they're buying is likely to be their first significant asset.
Making a Will is one of the last things on their mind. They're in a stressful situation - buying a property.
They prioritise a digital service, one that is as fuss free as possible.

The Happy Couple
26 - 35 | Married/Cohabiting | Homeowner | New Client

The Happy Couple may already have an existing Will in place if they made one when they bought their property.
They may be considering children in the near future, and protecting their family will be a priority.They're busy with their careers, so need a swift, easy service.They're also very particular about which companies they work with, gaining and maintaining brand trust will be a priority.

The New Beginner
35+ | Homeowner | New Client | Divorced

The New Beginner is recently divorced, and may not understand the impact that a divorce has on their Will. They may or may not have children.Emotional support will be a priority.
There are a vast number of reasons why they have gotten divorced, we shouldn't assume that they are no longer in contact with their ex-partner.

Interviews

I interviewed 20 users to understand their existing beliefs, motives, concerns, and what they hope to achieve from an online Will making process. I found:

• 80% believed that making a Will was for the elderly and not something that applied to them, their lifestyle, or their generation... yet
• 80% believed that there were other legal precedents override a Will, i.e. Common Law Marriage, Legal Marriage, and having children with a partner
• 90% were concerned about the amount of time it would take to make a Will
• 75% thought they'd have to make an in person appointment to make a Will
• 100% said that their main motive for making a Will was to protect their family

Understand - Internal

I talked to existing clients of the firm about how they felt about making a Will, what their concerns were, why they chose/chose not to make a Will.

I also needed to understand:

• The limitations and opportunities of tech we'd be integrating with
• The needs of the client facing teams, legal teams, and developers
• The future goals of the firm, and how this project fit into that

Identify

Through these conversations, I identified and prioritised 3 main pain points:

‍Why should I?
‍A lack of understanding of the importance of making a Will

‍How can I?
Wills are typically something that are made by older people. When users were asked what they think they need to do to make a Will, they had a skewed perception of how it works. Ranging from meeting with a lawyer with chesterfield sofas and mahogany desks, through to having their property and belongings valued.

‍When can I?
Users also thought that it would take much longer to make a Will than the reality, expectations running from 7 weeks to 6 months.

Design

Flows

I reviewed the various routes through which a user will come to make a Will with us, as a cross sell, organic client, and as a referral from another firm unable to take on clients.I considered the various teams that the user will be working with throughout their time as our client and what information this solution will need to provide at the very beginning of the process.I needed to maximise the efficiency of the time the user spent talking to a lawyer, obtaining as much information as necessary at the start of the user journey without overwhelming the user.

Wireframes

Following a series of lo-fi sketches, I transferred my sketches into Wireframes. A lot of the information being asked for, was technical from a legal stand point, so education was a key part of this stage of the process.How do we explain the law to our clients in a fun, and engaging way that helps users to understand their Will, without being condescending to those who already do?

Prototype

I created the finalised prototype within Figma, and we used this prototype to perform user testing.

Test

We worked with new test users, existing test users, and lawyers. The reason being, if a lawyer can’t understand what’s going on, they won’t be able to answer their client's questions.Initially, the additional content was presented under the CTAs. We found that this resulted in 7/10 users exiting from the process of making a digital Will before they’d finished due to a lack of understanding about what they were writing in their Will.We opted to present the information on the right hand side of the page to appeal to user's left-to-right reading styles, clearly explaining concepts such as a pecuniary legacy in simple terms.

Following this change, the drop rate decreased to 2/10. One because their lunch hour was coming to an end, and another because they felt that the process was a bit long for the middle of the day in between other errands they were running.

Refinement

TBC

Reflections

Commercials

We worked with new test users, existing test users, and lawyers. The reason being, if a lawyer can’t understand what’s going on, they won’t be able to answer their client's questions.

Initially, the additional content was presented under the CTAs. We found that this resulted in 7/10 users exiting from the process of making a digital Will before they’d finished due to a lack of understanding about what they were writing in their Will.

We opted to present the information on the right hand side of the page to appeal to user's left-to-right reading styles, clearly explaining concepts such as a pecuniary legacy in simple terms.

Following this change, the drop rate decreased to 2/10. One because their lunch hour was coming to an end, and another because they felt that the process was a bit long for the middle of the day in between other errands they were running.

Goals

First things first, did the new process achieve the set goals?

‍Transition from a paper-based experience to a paperless experience.
‍Yes, the new process allows for a completely paperless experience.

‍Increase instruction rates in the Wills department.
‍Yes, the month after launch instruction rates in the Wills department increased by 46%

‍Educate clients to empower them to take control of their legal future.
‍The measurability of this metric is vague, but given the success of the other two goals, I'd hope, yes.

Industry

The legal industry is driven by users' lack of education - the need for a lawyer. A lot of firms/companies will steer clear of putting their client in control of their legal future so that their lawyers and fee earners keep fee earning.Interestingly, through this process we found that the more you can educate a client without having to talk to their lawyer every single time they have a question, the more in control a client felt.

Societal

Gen Z and Millennial users are wanting an increasingly greater amount of control over their user experiences. Gone are the days of paying a professional to handle a process, user education will become an increasingly important part of user experience design.