The challenge is bringing a will to the attention of a larger target group.
Drafting a will feels like a far-from-my-bed show to many people. Death is a difficult subject and people prefer not to deal with it. It is mainly people over 60 who think about it. But a will is also important for young people. If you do not have a will, the law of inheritance applies. This can lead to your inheritance ending up with the wrong people, that too much inheritance tax has to be paid or that guardianship is not properly arranged. That is why Thuisnotaris wants to make drawing up a will as accessible as possible.
Business Need:
The challenge is bringing a will to the attention of a larger target group.
Drafting a will feels like a far-from-my-bed show to many people. Death is a difficult subject and people prefer not to deal with it. It is mainly people over 60 who think about it. But a will is also important for young people. If you do not have a will, the law of inheritance applies. This can lead to your inheritance ending up with the wrong people, that too much inheritance tax has to be paid or that guardianship is not properly arranged. That is why Thuisnotaris wants to make drawing up a will as accessible as possible.
Solution:
A self-service tool built in Mendix.
Mathijs, project manager at Thuisnotaris, says: "We want to make the process of creating a will accessible to as many people as possible. That's why we came up with a tool that allows people to independently map out their wishes and options. They can do this from the comfort of their own home on their phone, tablet, or laptop. If customers need help while using the tool to create their (living) will, they can immediately schedule an appointment with a specialist. This is a 60-minute telephone appointment during which the specialist will work with the customer to create their (living) will. If the customer chooses to create everything themselves, they can schedule a 30-minute telephone appointment with a specialist after using the tool. In this conversation, all the data entered by the customer will be checked. Personal information is only requested after the appointment has been scheduled, so we keep the threshold for using the tool low. This way, the customer can choose to take the personal path with guidance or create everything digitally by themselves."
Technical Challenges
During every project, there are special requirements that pose challenges. This project was no exception. We will briefly explain a few examples of these challenges.
Making a technically complex design possible
After completing the first part of the tool, the user sees an overview of the sections that will be included in the testament. The designer created a beautiful but complex design for this. The sections are plotted on a road, but the number of sections differs depending on the testament choices you make. Therefore, we had to calculate how many sections should come per line and also make it responsive. This was a challenge, but we succeeded.
Easily adapting the style for other companies
Thuisnotaris has the ambition to make this tool available to third parties, such as charities. Therefore, we made all the style components dynamic. This makes it very easy to adapt the style of the app to the corporate identity of other companies.
Cutting out a component at the last moment
About halfway through development, the question arose whether we could offer the section for a life testament separately. Depending on where the user comes from, they should see all the questions or only the life testament questions. Fortunately, we had already made sure that the different sections could be easily cut out. Because we built all testament options modularly, we were able to handle this quite easily.
Data security
We take the security of customer data very seriously. When dealing with highly sensitive information and concerns about privacy and data breaches, we understand that it is essential to reassure customers. The Mendix platform in which the tool is built is an extremely secure platform and complies with various ISO standards. In addition, we regularly scan our tools with our own security scan to detect vulnerabilities in the code and unauthorized access to data. Finally, we use peer reviews to check each other's work. With these measures, we provide customers with a secure environment to draw up their testament.
Results:
"I'm proud of what we've accomplished."
The first 1000 visitors have currently gone through the tool. Because we have only just gone live, it is still too early to say anything about the results. But there is a tool to be proud of. Mathijs: "I am proud of what we have created. We have succeeded in creating a tool that makes drawing up a will accessible and light. The playful design plays a major role in this, which makes it less difficult. I am convinced convinced that we will really make a difference with this tool."
The coming period we will collect data and analyze how users navigate through the tool. This way, we can further optimize the tool step by step.