4 November 2011
From designing insurance to ensuring better design
It’s quite a leap from New Zealand’s biggest life insurer to a small but dynamic design company. However that’s just
what Kris Nygren, who has just been appointed General Manager for Optimal Usability in Auckland, has done.
Kris joined Optimal Usability in July, but was already a fan of their user-centred design work. Five years earlier,
while heading up Sovereign Insurance’s market innovation team, he hired the relatively youthful consultancy to inject
some user input into the design of its new online Instant Life insurance channel.
It was a leap of faith which paid off. Mr Nygren says that Optimal Usability had a small involvement in the project, but
made a massive impact. Their research with potential life insurance customers ensured that the application was truly
designed with their needs in mind. As a result of that project ASB internet banking customers have been able to buy life
insurance online while doing their online banking for the past four years.
What’s more, letting customers lead the design meant that things went much more quickly than usual. “It was crazy fast,”
says Mr Nygren “we just followed what the user research told us, and didn’t get distracted by what we thought people wanted.” Sovereign were so pleased with the results, they joined sister company ASB in adopting a
user-centred approach across their service delivery.
Mr Nygren kept in touch with Optimal Usability’s work with Sovereign, despite moving on to new roles within Sovereign.
“From that moment on, I was a hooked on user-centred design!” A well-timed coffee with Shailesh Manga, Optimal
Usability’s Chicago-bound Auckland Manager, alerted Mr Nygren to the upcoming opportunity to jump on-board with the
Optimal Usability Auckland team.
He’s delighted he made the move. “Optimal Usability’s mission is to help transform our clients. I love being able to
make such a difference to the who’s who of New Zealand corporates… and to help Optimal Usability grow and become even
better in the process”.
About Optimal Usability
Optimal Usability is New Zealand’s leading user experience consultancy. We find out exactly how people use websites,
products or services, and use this information to make the world a more user-friendly place. We have 190 clients,
including Air New Zealand, Vodafone, Westpac, ASB and ACC. Optimal Usability is 8 years old and NZ-owned, employing 21
people in our Auckland and Wellington offices, plus 7 staff in the Australian consulting business (Optimal Experience). Last year we passed the 10,000 user mark for our product company (Optimal Workshop), with more than 90% of revenue offshore and a customer list including CNN, NASA, BBC, Facebook, Intel and many other
global brands.
ENDS