Mariona Guiu

How can we help homeowners improve home safety and prevent damage while positioning ALF as a trusted partner?

The focus was on understanding where people feel vulnerable and how their needs could be addressed in a way that builds trust and long-term engagement.

During a two-month discovery phase, with four weeks dedicated to weekly user interviews and continuous research, I helped the team understand how to build trust and drive ongoing engagement for a B2C insurance app. We learned that homeowners mainly worry about things happening when they're not at home, especially when kids or pets are there alone. Reliability and data privacy were non-negotiable, particularly for safety-critical smart devices.

Users expected devices to work at all times and wanted clear confirmation that everything was functioning as intended. Uncertainty around device status created stress, which made visibility and notifications a core product requirement. Many users were also willing to pay more for safety products they trusted and saw clear value in, including installing multiple detectors for areas like water leaks.

Education proved to be a strong driver for engagement. Practical guidance such as tasks, reminders, and checklists felt useful and motivating, while chatbots and community features showed low relevance for this context.

Based on these insights, I helped the team define an MVP focused on prevention, clarity, and education. We prioritised onboarding, home and device overview, notifications, and learning content, while keeping the scope realistic and ready to scale.

Our solution combines a mobile app and a home kit to help first-time homeowners improve safety using IoT and connected devices. The app gives users clear control over their devices and sends relevant alerts when something needs attention.

Educational content plays a key role, with personalised tasks and the “Learn with ALF” section offering short quizzes on home safety. This makes security practical, understandable, and easier to engage with.

A connected home-safety service for Sweden's largest customer-owned insurance group. We delivered a proposal that Länsförsäkringar took forward directly: they established Länsförsäkringar Trygghetstjänster AB, a new company jointly owned by twelve regional Länsförsäkringar businesses, to build and launch the product based on our findings.

• Proposal accepted and resourced into a new company jointly owned by twelve regional Länsförsäkringar businesses, established to build and launch the product based on our findings.
• Launched December 2023 as a native app with a supporting website.
• 4.6 on the App Store and 4.4 on Google Play across roughly 190 combined ratings, with reviews specifically praising the uncluttered interface and the guidance content.
• Concept still intact two and a half years later, now at version 3.27 and shipping every two weeks with new capability.
• A team of four: with two designers, a PM, and a tech lead delivered a concept proposal in six weeks.

Moving fast without heavy process worked because we stayed close to users. Understanding the problem clearly mattered more than perfecting details early so that building something rough and refining it against real reactions got us further than polishing in isolation would have.

• Figma
• Figjam
• Notion
• Jira / Confluence
• Slack
• Native app