Transforming Visana's Insurance Advisory Experience with Lusee's Innovative Mixed-Reality Solution

Read this case study to learn more about the innovative solution we helped build to reshape customer advisory meetings in the insurance industry.

Visana decided to reinvent insurance advisory

Visana, one of Switzerland’s biggest health and accident insurance companies with over 848,000 private and 16,500 corporate customers, wanted to enhance their client consultations where they guide clients in selecting the right insurance package. Striving for a novel approach, Visana partnered with Lusee to develop a tailored application that uses Lusee’s hardware technology to offer a unique experience to customers at insurance advisory sessions.

By the time Modeso joined the project, Lusee and Visana had already made substantial progress. The UI design and user flow of the app were well-defined, providing a foundation for the technical implementation. Our role was to build two versions of an intuitive and engaging web application that needed to seamlessly integrate with Lusee’s system. 

Read on to learn more about the innovative features we helped develop and how we did it.

Lusee’s innovative features

The Lusee solution implemented for Visana enhances the interaction between insurance advisors and clients. The process begins with the advisors capturing key data in a digital dossier during initial consultations. This dossier serves as the foundation for demonstrating relevant subject areas and insurance products.

The Lusee device which resembles a classic ceiling lamp, opens up an immersive space on the table where the customer and advisor engage, introducing a range of functions:

Handwriting recognition

Lusee automatically identifies and stores handwritten notes, enabling playback during consultations.

Touch interface

Advisors can seamlessly reveal or conceal additional dossier information by touch, ensuring information availability without disrupting the natural flow of conversation.

Tokens

Tokens, physical objects placed on the table, project additional content related to various topic areas. They provide consistent visual support throughout the conversation.

Paper recognition

Lusee can recognize documents, such as dossiers, positioned on the table and determine the current open page. It identifies if the document is moved, realigned, or set aside.

 Interactive buttons

While engaging with documents on the table, users have the option to activate projected buttons, revealing additional information adjacent to the paper, creating a sort of augmented reality experience.

How we built a web application for the mixed-reality solution

Our project can be segmented into three key milestones: Proof of Concept (PoC), web application development, and refinement. We delivered the initial application in just two months, followed by additional three months of work dedicated to refining and upgrading the first version of the application.

Handwriting recognition

Our engagement with Lusee started with our CTO conducting a thorough analysis of Lusee’s framework and technology, and developing a proof of concept to determine the most effective implementation strategy.

The complexities of the user flow, involving token interactions, required a solid solution for event handling. When a user places a token on the table and interacts with the projected screen, specific states must be triggered. Introducing another token requires the system to react by overlaying a new page. Also, we needed to handle scenarios where a user removes a token or introduces written content on a piece of paper. These actions demanded meticulous event handling to ensure the application responded appropriately, navigating through diverse states and preserving the fluidity of the user experience.

Our collaboration with Lusee’s engineering team helped us define the solution for event handling, laying the groundwork for a seamless and engaging user experience.

Web application development

Following the proof of concept stage, we created a web app that seamlessly integrated with Lusee’s backend. This phase involved a team of two software developers and a project manager from Modeso.

During the web app development process, our tech team collaborated closely with Lusee’s implementation team, which was focused on building the algorithm for connecting the Kinect motion sensor with the Electron framework. The backend, linked to the motion sensor and projector, interprets signals and translates them into specific actions. For instance, placing a token on the table triggers the sensor, leading to the projection of a designated page.

Enhancing the application in the upgraded version

After this project was finished, we continued working with Lusee on the development of a refined version of their application called Lusee Starlight. In this version, Lusee’s team modified the backend implementation, allowing us to focus solely on developing the front end of the app.

From Angular to React to enable interactive capabilities

Lusee operates on a robust foundation, employing Electron for the backend – a versatile framework designed to build cross-platform desktop apps with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. 

On the front end, we initially used Angular, but Lusee’s Electron implementation faced challenges, particularly in terms of responsiveness and the effectiveness of features like handwriting recognition. 

Recognizing these limitations, Lusee’s tech team did a major refinement of their framework in Lusee Starlight, the subsequent version of the application. This refinement allowed us to use React to fully integrate with their new solution. While the functional aspects such as page content and user flows remained the same compared to the previous version, the migration to React significantly improved performance and responsiveness, providing a more efficient platform for Lusee’s interactive capabilities.

Navigating testing challenges: emulators and on-site sessions for real hardware experiences

Testing posed a major challenge in the development process as we couldn’t solely depend on an emulator to assess the application’s interaction with the hardware.

The emulator, while serving its purpose in configuring starting positions and simulating key scenarios, fell short in replicating critical user actions such as touching the table, writing with a special Lusee pen, or accidental clicking. Also, since the emulator was built for Windows and our team worked on Linux, it didn’t provide a reliable solution for our development efforts. 

To get a better understanding of the device’s behavior, we performed on-site testing sessions. Our technical project manager visited the customer’s location in Zurich to conduct testing with the actual hardware, identify bugs, and communicate them to the development team. Because our tech teams are in Egypt, where the bulk of development occurred, we used Team Viewer to facilitate remote access and find a compromise between physical presence and efficiency.

Our on-site testing sessions ensured prompt fixes and the deployment of updated versions, ultimately closing the gaps in the testing phase.

Result: Overwhelmingly positive feedback from Visana’s insurance advisors and clients

Close collaboration between Modeso and Lusee resulted in an immersive mixed-reality solution that got highly positive feedback from both Visana’s insurance advisors and clients. Everyone loved it!

Visana’s clients appreciated the innovative approach and the interactive features, such as handwriting recognition and token-based interactions, while insurance advisors found the platform to be highly effective in sharing information during consultations, contributing to an engaging customer experience.

Our collaboration with Lusee extended to developing Lusee Starlight, the next version of the application for the insurance industry.