AA Ireland - My AA Portal

Role

As Director of Product & Technology at WONDR, I led the end-to-end redesign of the My AA Membership digital journey — from initial discovery and AI-powered user research through to design, build, and live deployment on WordPress and WP Engine. The objective was to modernise the membership flow, reduce friction, and deliver a measurable increase in online conversions for one of Ireland's most trusted consumer brands.

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Challenges

Despite AA Ireland's strong brand equity, the digital experience underpinning the My AA membership product was falling short:

• Friction-Heavy Journey: The existing membership flow involved too many steps, with complex language and unclear value communication causing drop-off at key conversion points.
• Disconnected Brand Expression: The online journey failed to reflect the AA's core ethos — 'yellow and black, we've got your back' — leaving customers without a clear sense of the membership's value.
• Dual Audience Confusion: The site served both prospective members and existing customers without clearly differentiating their journeys, creating unnecessary cognitive load for both groups.
• Limited Scalability: The existing platform lacked a coherent design system, making ongoing maintenance and iteration slow and inconsistent.

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Contribution

1. AI-Powered User Research:
   • Applied a bespoke AI Saliency Prediction model to the existing membership flow, replicating human visual behaviour with 95% accuracy to identify attention zones, fixation failures, and areas of visual confusion — before a single pixel of new design was created.
   • Used objective, data-driven insight to remove subjectivity from the design diagnosis and align all stakeholders on the evidence for change.
2. Stakeholder Discovery & Alignment:
   • Conducted collaborative workshops with AA Ireland's Call Centre Agents, Product Managers, Compliance team, and in-house developers to surface internal pain points and define the strategic vision for the new platform.
   • Developed a phased delivery roadmap covering the full website, membership flow, and eQuote journeys across all insurance products.
3. UX & Design System:
   • Introduced an atomic design system connecting design, code, and documentation into a single coherent framework — accelerating development and ensuring fidelity between design intent and final build.
   • Applied systematic UX writing and text hierarchy techniques to simplify the membership steps, reduce cognitive load, and bring the AA's brand ethos to life at every stage of the journey.
   • Designed a 'I'm Browsing / I'm a Customer' homepage architecture to clearly differentiate the journeys of prospective and existing members.
4. Two-Step Validation:
   • Reapplied the AI Saliency Prediction model to the new designs to validate assumptions before development investment.
   • Conducted moderated user testing with real users via clickable prototypes, achieving usability satisfaction scores of 90%–95% among test participants.
5. Build & Delivery:
   • Delivered the full build on WordPress and WP Engine, with rigorous QA and UAT ensuring pixel-perfect fidelity between the validated design and the live experience.
   • Structured the design system and component library for AA Ireland's internal team to own and extend — building capability rather than dependency.

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Recognition

The updated theaa.ie platform was recognised by the Global Vega Digital Awards with the 2022 Centauri Award for Best Insurance Website — one of the most prestigious accolades in digital product design internationally.

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🏆 Vega Digital Awards 2022 — Centauri Winner, Best Insurance Website

The updated theaa.ie platform was recognised globally by the Vega Digital Awards, winning the top Centauri Award for Best Insurance Website — reflecting the ambition, rigour, and quality of the digital transformation delivered.

📈 +35% Increase in Member Conversions

The redesigned My AA membership flow delivered a 35% uplift in visitors converting to AA Ireland members. By removing friction, improving value communication, and creating a journey that genuinely served users' needs, the new experience transformed the membership product's online commercial performance.

📱 +45% Increase in Active App Users

Post-purchase onboarding design successfully directed new members to the AA app, resulting in a 45% increase in active app users — turning the end of the purchase journey into the beginning of an ongoing digital relationship.

🚗 +24% Growth Across Insurance Purchase Journeys

Improved navigation architecture had a measurable halo effect across the broader site, lifting the number of customers entering insurance purchase journeys across all products — car, home, and travel — by 24%.

✅ 90–95% Usability Satisfaction

The two-step validation methodology — combining AI Saliency Prediction with real-user prototype testing — produced consistently high usability satisfaction scores of 90%–95% among test participants.

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The gallery showcases the redesigned My AA membership experience across mobile and desktop — from the personalised membership quote flow and confirmation screens through to the post-purchase onboarding journey. Key highlights include the 'I'm Browsing / I'm a Customer' homepage architecture, the simplified membership benefit communication, and the AI saliency heatmap analysis that underpinned every design decision throughout the project.