Oscar Choi

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Oscar Choi

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Case study

Transforming digital support content
to increase self-service

Transforming digital support content
to increase self-service

A 10-month cross-functional engagement to rethink the structure, content, and design of Aviva's digital support experience, reducing call centre demand and improving customer self-service.

Client

Aviva

My role

Project Lead

Type

Support Experience Design

Duration

10 months

Design Leadership

Content Strategy

Information Architecture

UX Strategy

Digital Transformation

Aviva support page designs showing car insurance and health insurance support pages with navigation, hero banners, and self-service task cards

SUMMARY

I led a 10-month cross-functional engagement to rethink Aviva's digital support experience across insurance, pensions, investments, and other product lines.


  • Led the engagement end to end, from discovery and business case through design and into phased implementation, and built the team that delivered it.

  • Ran the discovery that turned a subjective, preference-driven debate into an evidence base, securing approval for the design and delivery phase.

  • Created a scalable support content framework (new templates and a validated information architecture) that gave Aviva a maintainable model across business units, working within tight AEM platform constraints.

  • Redesigned support content across all product lines and launched the first phase (Investing and Retirement) before handover, with the remaining tranches approved and scheduled for rollout.

I led the design of a Gen-AI powered call-assist tool for the Economic Crime Prevention team at a major UK retail bank, in a compressed six-week engagement.

  • Led a design team of two, and directed the design effort end to end: interrogating the brief, running discovery, mapping journeys, and reviewing and refining the team's output.

  • Prioritized discovery (live call listening and analyst reviews) as the foundation for quality design, then translated it into a clear set of principles for human-AI interaction in a regulated, high-stakes workflow.

  • Owned the client relationship, presenting the work through show-and-tells to internal and client stakeholders.

  • The designs were well received and taken forward by the bank's internal development teams, who built and deployed the tool after the design engagement.

Overview

Aviva's website support experience played a critical role in helping customers find information, resolve issues, and self-serve across insurance, pensions, investments, and other financial services products. Over time, the existing support content had become difficult to navigate, inconsistent across business areas, and hard for customers to act on.

This created a dual problem: customers struggled to find what they needed online, while Aviva continued to carry high operational costs through reliance on call center support.

I led a 10-month cross-functional engagement to rethink the structure, content, and design of the support experience. The work began with a discovery phase to identify the scale of the problem and build the case for change, leading to approval for a design and delivery phase, followed by a wider rollout across remaining business units.

Aviva's website support experience played a critical role in helping customers find information, resolve issues, and self-serve across insurance, pensions, investments, and other financial services products. Over time, the existing support content had become difficult to navigate, inconsistent across business areas, and hard for customers to act on.

This created a dual problem: customers struggled to find what they needed online, while Aviva continued to carry high operational costs through reliance on call center support.

I led a 10-month cross-functional engagement to rethink the structure, content, and design of the support experience. The work began with a discovery phase to identify the scale of the problem and build the case for change, leading to approval for a design and delivery phase, followed by a wider rollout across remaining business units.

The Challenge

The support content needed to serve customers across multiple business areas, each with different products, service journeys, operational priorities, and legacy content. Over time, this had produced a support experience that was fragmented and difficult to use.

The challenge was not simply to redesign a set of pages. It was to create a scalable support framework that could work across Aviva's business while remaining feasible within existing platform constraints.

Customers were often unable to find key information or complete support tasks without additional help. From a business perspective, this increased pressure on call center teams and contributed to avoidable operational cost.

My role

I was Project Lead, responsible for leading the engagement from discovery through design and implementation. I set the direction for the team, structured the discovery approach, led stakeholder engagement, authored proposals, ran kick-off workshops, and presented findings and recommendations to senior stakeholders.


I also built the team: interviewing members, identifying capability gaps, mentoring junior colleagues, and making sure the right mix of design, content, analysis, and delivery expertise was in place throughout.


I was the primary point of contact for senior stakeholders across product, design, AEM platform ownership, content, operations, and business units, leading regular updates, reviewing team outputs, and keeping the work aligned to both customer needs and business priorities.

Working within constraints

The project had several important constraints that shaped how we approached the work.

AEM Platform

The website ran on Adobe Experience Manager 6. Work had to be delivered within the existing component library, with limited scope for design system changes.

Navigation limits

The main navigation could only be modified within existing configuration options. Structural redesign was not possible.

Component mismatches

Some available AEM components did not align with desired design system patterns, requiring pragmatic design decisions throughout.

Budget limitations

Minimal design system changes were possible, which focused the team on information architecture, content, and template consistency instead.

Rather than treat these as blockers, I used the constraints to focus the team where we could have the greatest impact: information architecture, content clarity, page structure, template consistency, and task-oriented support journeys.

Discovery: Creating Evidence for Change

The first phase focused on building a clear evidence base. I led the team through a discovery process using a combination of methods: tree testing, competitor analysis, journey analysis, and usability analysis.

Tree testing

Competitor analysis

Journey analysis

Usability analysis

Tree testing validated where customers expected to find support information and confirmed significant scope to improve the information architecture. Competitor analysis showed that effective support experiences were typically more pared back, utilitarian, and task-focused than Aviva's existing content. Usability reviews highlighted broken, inconsistent, and unintuitive journeys that made it harder for customers to resolve issues online.


This discovery phase was critical because it gave the team and stakeholders a shared understanding of the problem, moving the conversation away from subjective preferences and toward evidence-based decision-making. The findings led directly to approval for the design and delivery phase.

Tree testing validated where customers expected to find support information and confirmed significant scope to improve the information architecture. Competitor analysis showed that effective support experiences were typically more pared back, utilitarian, and task-focused than Aviva's existing content. Usability reviews highlighted broken, inconsistent, and unintuitive journeys that made it harder for customers to resolve issues online.

This discovery phase was critical because it gave the team and stakeholders a shared understanding of the problem, moving the conversation away from subjective preferences and toward evidence-based decision-making. The findings led directly to approval for the design and delivery phase.

From Insights to Design Principles

The discovery findings were translated into a set of principles to guide the next phase.

1

Easier to navigate - clearer information architecture and consistent structure across business areas

2

Task-focused - support pages designed to help customers complete specific tasks, not browse general information

3

Content simplified - outdated information removed, remaining content made more concise and actionable

4

Distinct from marketing - support pages feel separate from broader product and marketing content

5

Scalable and maintainable - a framework that business units could sustain over time without creating inconsistency

Creating a Scalable Support Framework

A key design decision was to create a new set of support page templates across different page levels. This improved consistency and created a clearer distinction between support content and other website content.

The templates were designed to help customers understand where they were, what options were available, and how to complete the next step. They also gave Aviva a more maintainable framework for future support content, reducing the likelihood that business units would keep creating inconsistent page structures over time.


Early concepts were tested with users and refined based on feedback. We worked closely with design, content, and AEM platform teams to make sure the templates aligned with the design system, were technically feasible, and were realistic to build within the existing component library.

A key design decision was to create a new set of support page templates across different page levels. This improved consistency and created a clearer distinction between support content and other website content.

The templates were designed to help customers understand where they were, what options were available, and how to complete the next step. They also gave Aviva a more maintainable framework for future support content, reducing the likelihood that business units would keep creating inconsistent page structures over time.

Early concepts were tested with users and refined based on feedback. We worked closely with design, content, and AEM platform teams to make sure the templates aligned with the design system, were technically feasible, and were realistic to build within the existing component library.

Aligning Across Business Units

The support experience cut across multiple business areas, so alignment was a major part of the work. We ran detailed requirements analysis with stakeholders from each business area to confirm which support information needed to be included, which content was outdated, and where consolidation was possible.

Content writers from our team worked closely with Aviva's content team to simplify support information while meeting brand and quality standards. Significant effort went into making the content more concise, useful, and easier for customers to understand.


We also agreed a new URL structure that reflected the updated information architecture while taking SEO into account, which required close collaboration between design, content, business, and platform stakeholders.

The support experience cut across multiple business areas, so alignment was a major part of the work. We ran detailed requirements analysis with stakeholders from each business area to confirm which support information needed to be included, which content was outdated, and where consolidation was possible.

Content writers from our team worked closely with Aviva's content team to simplify support information while meeting brand and quality standards. Significant effort went into making the content more concise, useful, and easier for customers to understand.

We also agreed a new URL structure that reflected the updated information architecture while taking SEO into account, which required close collaboration between design, content, business, and platform stakeholders.

Impact

The work improved the discovery, navigation, and consistency of Aviva's support content, helping customers find key information more easily and creating a stronger foundation for digital self-service.

Full redesign delivered across all product lines

Full redesign delivered across all product lines

Led the redesign of support content across every product line, turning discovery findings into one consistent, task-focused framework.

First phase launched

First phase launched

The first tranche, Investing and Retirement, launched before my handover, with the remaining tranches approved and scheduled for rollout.

A scalable, maintainable framework

A scalable, maintainable framework

New templates and a validated information architecture gave Aviva a model it could sustain and extend, not a one-off set of pages.

Evidence-led change

Evidence-led change

Discovery moved stakeholders from subjective preferences to shared, evidence-based decisions, and secured approval for delivery and rollout.

Measurement built in from the start

Measurement built in from the start

I had the team brief Aviva's data science function to baseline call center demand and self-service traffic before launch, so impact could be tracked, not assumed.

Encouraging early signals

Encouraging early signals

Before handover, the product owner reported early positive movement on those measures. I'm careful not to over-attribute, but the signals pointed where the design intended.

Reflection

The clearest lesson from this project was how much team shape determines outcome on a cross-functional program. Early on, gaps in the team's mix made delivery harder than it needed to be. As I built the team out and brought in the right balance of design, content, analysis, and delivery skills, the quality, pace, and confidence of the work all improved markedly.


For a program spanning design, content, technology, operations, and multiple business units, getting the team composition right is not an operational detail. It is a strategic lever, and one I now treat as a first-order priority rather than something to solve as the work unfolds.

The clearest lesson from this project was how much team shape determines outcome on a cross-functional program. Early on, gaps in the team's mix made delivery harder than it needed to be. As I built the team out and brought in the right balance of design, content, analysis, and delivery skills, the quality, pace, and confidence of the work all improved markedly.

For a program spanning design, content, technology, operations, and multiple business units, getting the team composition right is not an operational detail. It is a strategic lever, and one I now treat as a first-order priority rather than something to solve as the work unfolds.

My contribution

Project leadership

Discovery

Stakeholder alignment

IA & content strategy

Team building

Senior reporting

Collaborators

Design & Content Team

UX design, content writing & IA

AEM Platform Team
Technical feasibility & component delivery

Client Business Units
Requirements, content sign-off & go-live

Website Product Owners

Design approvals and content production

Methods Used

Tree testing
Competitor analysis
Journey analysis

Usability analysis

Requirements workshops

Content strategy
IA design
Usability testing
Stakeholder presentations

Next case study

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Insurance · Service Design

Oscar Choi

© 2026 · Irvine, California