Elyza Brillantes | Identity Force

Introduction

Identity Force is a subscription-based identity theft and fraud protection service. Subscribers receive a variety of reports related to their identity details, as well as alerts if anything is amiss.

Problem

The majority of Identity Force's main value proposition is locked behind a pay wall. Their website provides a wealth of educational content, but the amount of info can feel intimidating to users who don't quite understand how to apply it to their own lives.

Users who didn’t feel ready to commit to a subscription plan needed a way to engage with Identity Theft and better understand why their service was a worthwhile investment.

Solution

Our team designed a free user flow that would assess their risk of identity theft and provide useful and actionable tips to help a user protect themself. It would also create an incentive for the user to improve their habits, giving them an opportunity to receive a discount on a subscription.

Timeline

3 weeks

Role

Project Manager
Lead UI Designer
Illustrator
Interaction Designer

Team

Alexander Lazear, Skylair Hilton

Research

A couple of the biggest challenges our team faced was that we didn't have access to their mobile app (since all features required a paid subscription) and we were relatively inexperienced in the world of identity theft and fraud.

To help inform our design decisions, we sought out customer reviews for Identity Force and surveyed our networks to understand where our largest opportunities lied.

We knew that identity theft and fraud can be devastating life events, but how willing is the general public to invest in a protection service?

Methods

Data Analysis
Surveys + Interviews
Journey Mapping
Affinity Mapping
Personas

Confronting our bias.

Our hypothesis was that identity theft and fraud was not an issue that was top of mind for the 20-39 demographic; these are the users we encountered who claimed they never would pay for a protection service like Identity force.

However, in reviewing FTC data on reported cases of identity theft, we were surprised to see that over the last 5 years, the number of cases reported by consumers age 20-39 steadily increased, while cases from consumers age 50-69 declined.

This hit close to home for our team, suggesting that more and more consumers our own age were victims of fraud and identity theft.

Validating with qualitative data.

The idea that identity force and fraud incidents were more common than we thought was reinforced by survey results we received from our personal network. 98% of respondents had experienced some form of identity theft or fraud, but only 8% subscribed to a protection service like Identity Force.

When asked if they'd be interested subscribing to a service like Identity Force, almost every respondent flatly said, no. Why?

Their reasoning echoed some of the pain points of existing subscribers — they had no idea if it would work for them, and also, it never seemed like a problem until it happened to them. Most respondents and interviewees lacked the education to understand why fraud happened to them, or what they could do to protect themselves.

Most users did not consider identity theft or fraud to be something to worry about — until it happens to them.

Most users have experienced some type of fraud, but don't know why it happened. They also don't know what they can do to protect themselves.

Most users do not have a clear understanding of how at risk they are for fraud or identity theft.

What were our product goals?

Create an experience for non-paying users that would allow them to understand Identity Force's value proposition
Educate users on habits that may put them at risk for identity theft
Create an incentive for users to adopt healthy personal security habits
Use copy that feels encouraging and helpful, rather than fear mongering

Creating a free flow from the ground up.

With the wide number of paths we could take, our team conducted a design studio to determine what features to prioritize.

Some common threads quickly arose:

A - We all landed on a variation of a personalized score for new users that would help quantify the abstract concept of risk.

Since the majority of our users surveyed stated that they didn't understand their risk, this felt like an important feature.
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B - An education angle also would be key to providing value to the non-paying user. We wanted to provide the user with action items that they could implement in their everyday life to help boost their score.

With a topic as sensitive as personal security / identity theft, we felt providing this free "guide" would help increase trust in Identity Force's authority and brand.
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We also landed on several features that ended up being de-prioritized due to the short time frame of the project.

With more time, we would have loved to explore notification / alerts, as well as what the paid subscriber screens may look like.

Key Feature Development

#1: The ID Force Score Quiz

The user would answer simple yes or no questions about their existing habits around relevant topics like credit, passwords, etc.
User testing completed at the wireframing stage reminded us that we needed the copy to reinforce the idea that no sensitive info was going to be collected.
To keep the experience feeling approachable, and to fold in the brand's colors, we used large illustrations to accompany each question.

#2: The ID Force Score

We envisioned this score functioning as an easy way to have Identity Force assess a new user and provide value, without forcing them to opt in to a paid package.
The quiz results page was accompanied by a discount offer that would be unlocked if the user was able to increase their ID Force Score.
User testing completed at the wireframing stage revealed confusion around the score — what was the max score? To address this, we changed the graphic to a radial progress bar.

#3: The Secure Habits Guide

Our initial wireframes had this labeled as an "education" section. However, I wanted to reinforce that this was a product that would be the user's go-to resource for improving their ID Force Score, so we re-named it as a "guide."
Initial iterations of the screens included data and infographics on each topic, but in user testing, it still didn't feel easily digestible. I switched the UI to a checklist format, with expandable cards that would provide contextual info.

Integrating Into Desktop

Next, I integrated the non-paid user flow into Identity Force's existing website. Given that we designed the mobile app from scratch, one of my biggest challenges as was to ensure that the branding and experience felt aligned when incorporated into the desktop website.

Learnings

Thoughtful content is critical for sensitive subjects.
Balancing approachability with trustworthiness and authoritativeness is a hard line to walk. I would have loved to consult with an identity theft / fraud expert to refine quiz questions and Secure Habits Guide content.
Being scrappy with user research can be helpful in identifying who isn't using your product.
Our limited time frame prevented us from finding a user who subscribed to an identity protection service, so it was difficult to identify the pain points of current subscribers. In our efforts to better understand what people know about identity theft as a whole, we uncovered potential users who would be good candidates for the service, but needed some extra convincing.

Next Steps

Since this was a conceptual project, I would have been eager to fully flesh out the ID Force Score Quiz and release it to see if it helped improve conversion to packages or engagement with their app and website. I'd also like to better outline the requirements how task completion on the Secure Habits Guide correlates with a user's score, ensuring that it's providing the right incentive to maintain healthy security habits.