Swiss Re – PUMA
PUMA (Project Underwriting Management Application) is a tool supporting Swiss Re's engineering underwriters, as well as external clients, in an elaborate process to accurately estimate risks of large construction projects.
Ginetta worked on a complete redesign of the application – a big task, since the underwriters loved their tool and have been working with the current interface for decades. For our designers, this meant that the new interface needed to provide real additional value to the users, supporting them even more in their daily work.
We began the project with a deep dive into the world of project underwriting, studying manuals and analysing the interface of the current application. To fully understand our users needs we visited underwriters at their desks and walked through their daily work and tasks on PUMA.
By analysing the current process we identified areas with potential for improvement and began do reorder the information architecture and flows inside the application to better suit the actual workflow of the underwriters.
Involving the user is key when designing for experts. In co-design sessions with two well-experienced underwriters, we created and improved our prototype, making use of their deep field-knowledge. Our prototypes were tested throughout the project by underwriters of different experience levels to evaluate and further improve the simplicity, efficiency and ensure acceptance of the concept.
The redesigned PUMA allows projects to be set up even faster, quickly providing the underwriter with a first estimation of the price, by accessing the data of similar projects. Underwriters can choose to create an empty project, use a template related to the basic project parameters, or import the setup from another existing project.
Through our deep understanding of the users’ workflow, we were able to combine four of the screens, that are at the heart of the risk estimation process, into one interactive screen - drastically improving efficiency, flexibility and clarity.
Key results are calculated in real-time and are displayed at any time in the process, reducing a lot of back and forth.
We introduced a clear separation between project description and insurance cover. This way underwriters can switch between these two very different tasks, while instantly seeing the impact of changes on the PUMA price calculation.
For the covers, we followed an interaction model that allows the users to either access the different covers individually or go through all of them in a structured, wizard-like and well-guided process reducing the risk for errors and giving the users substantial control.
Having Ginetta on board driving the design of one of our key client solutions assured us that we were on track towards a simple, intuitive and user friendly product. The team demonstrated outstanding commitment and following their philosophy materialized in reaching our goal: very positive user feedback from the beginning.
PUMA is one of the first tools in a whole suite of applications. We helped SwissRe in creating an overarching navigation concept, applicable to every tool added to the suite. Users should quickly recognize the application they’re working on and easily switch between different projects and applications when working in the browser with multiple open tabs.
The interactive Gantt-chart is the heart of PUMA and the most central tool for the underwriters. Getting the development of this module right was critical for the user experience of the tool. Our front-end developers helped Swiss Re to implement these advanced interactions.
We love the challenge of improving complex expert applications like PUMA. Especially the close collaboration and trustful relationship to Stephan and his expert team at Swiss Re made this project successful and fun.
Sylvain Morger
Research
Irene Hilber
Design
Johannes Hoffmann
Design
Min Chen
Design
Pierre Berchtold
Development
Pierre de la Martinière
Development
Pia Joelle Eggimann
Client Partner