Competing with email

Instinct suggests that ugliness in design is treated as evidence of neglect. That nobody cared.

This is prevalent in big cumbersome systems. The goal, the value is seen as the functionality not the form. Especially when the product is B2B, and especially when the industry is the London insurance market.

Lloyd’s steeped in tradition, acutely resistant to change. This extends to the companies that serve this industry. The SaaS ones. Engineers are expected to build and design the systems, designers are an unfamiliar concept.

They talk about clients as faceless corporates. They don’t think about the individual. They don’t think about the small interactions tied together resulting in the overall experience.

The software delivers but the experience is diminished.

I was told two of the biggest impacts on the insurance industry in recent history were internet banking and email. Our main adversary is email. Form is almost non existent, but where they shine is functionality.

They are a good representation for software in insurance, ways of working so engrained that they feel impossible to change.

Design culture expectations often run short term, projects or sprints. Insurance as an institution moves in years or decades.

I reflect on what that feels like as a person who wants to move at one speed working inside something that moves at another. Trying to advance the design, build better experiences.

Is patience a virtue here? Or is it a slow surrender?