CLIENT
Memories
OUTPUT
- CRM optimisation
- Mobile web experience
role
Senior Product Designer (Research, design, strategy)
IMPACT SNAPSHOT
- ↑ Memorial activation: from 22% → 71%
- ↓ Case creation time: from ~12 mins → 8.5 mins
- ↓ Case search time: from ~3 mins → 1 min
- Secured multi-year rollout to 200+ homes
TEAM
CEO, PM, 4 Devs Marketing, Sales
Goals
- For the business
Increase online memorial activation, demonstrate adoption of Memories products, and prove their commercial value to secure a multi-year partnership with InvoCare.
Challenge
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
Heuristics & Inspiration
To improve CRM usability, I reviewed the platform against heuristics and design best practices, drawing inspiration from government forms and modern CRM dashboards.
Key insights:
- The current UI lacked accessibility, with issues like poor colour contrast and inconsistent focus states.
- The lack of a clean, consistent UI made the CRM feel more difficult to use than it was, increasing the cognitive load on users.
- My research into government forms and CRM confirmed that multi-step layouts are highly effective at guiding users through complex tasks and reducing overwhelm.
Funeral Director
User Persona
InvoCare FD— explain packages to families, and create/manage cases on Memories Connect.
Funeral Director
Journey Map
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Added filter and sort options
Enhanced case recognition
Include photos of the deceased
Improved case information
Included extra details like upcoming events and service date
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Redesigned form layout using vertical tabs and breaking the information into logical sections, allowing funeral directors to focus on one chunk of information at a time and easily navigate between sections without excessive scrolling
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reports tab to track product usage, engagement, and value, helping InvoCare monitor KPIs in real time
Proposed design
linking flow
Memorial QR code linking flow
Increased memorial activation
Enabled funeral directors to set up online memorials with minimal training, using a QR code flow that simplified activation
Proposed design
Design Solutions
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Enhance case search across branches by adding filters and improving the UI
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Introduce the new design system to improve UI scalability, accessibility and keep consistency across platforms and brand.
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reporting tab to track product performance, families engagement, and overall product usage.
Linking flow
Memorial QR Code
Increase memorial activation
Designed a login-free QR code feature, enabling funeral directors to scan an link a QR code to a specific memorial — Link memorials to QR codes efficiently and eliminating the need to manually log into Connect.
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
Gathered real-time usability feedback to inform quick iterative updates
Add a secondary contact field to improve follow-up and increase memorial activation rates
Validated product concepts and identified friction points during daily use
- Made upcoming events visually clearer
- Introduced product status indicators to help funeral directors track progress
Iteration
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improve products tracking
Added product state visualisation
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Focus on one chunk of information at a time with the horizontal layout.
Case form
Reduced cognitive load
Optimised navigation
↓ case creation ~12 mins to ~9.5
✔️
✔️
✔️
Cases tab
Improved usability
Repeated search events dropped by ~35%
✔️
✔️
Reports tab
Evidence of product-market fit
Easy access to data
65% of pilot FD accessed the reporting tab weekly
✔️
✔️
✔️
Linking flow
Under 1 min to link a memorial
No training or need to manually log into Connect
71% memorial activation rate
✔️
✔️
✔️
“
“
It just feels easier to use now — I don’t have to think about where things are.
Craig Renshaw - Perth - Australia
NEXT CASE STUDY
Memorial Onboarding
Streamlining B2B workflows for funeral tech
Improved Memories Connect CRM and memorial setup flow
client
Memories Group
ROLE
Senior Product Designer (Research, design, strategy)
team
CEO, PM, 4 Devs Marketing, Sales
Duration
6 months (2024)
location
Melbourne
output
- CRM optimisation
- Mobile web experience
IMPACT SNAPSHOT
- ↑ Memorial activation: from 22% → 71%
- ↓ Case creation time: from ~12 mins → 8.5 mins
- ↓ Case search time: from ~3 mins → 1 min
- Secured multi-year rollout to 200+ homes
Overview
In 2024, Memories partnered with InvoCare to run a 6-week pilot across 12 funeral homes, testing four bundled products in InvoCare funeral packages: online memorials, tribute pages, live streaming, and digital guest books.
If successful, the plan was to roll out to 200+ funeral homes nationwide.
To support this, we redesigned the Memories Connect CRM to help funeral directors easily activate and manage these offerings.
Problem
The existing Memories Connect CRM was failing. A low 22% activation rate for the online memorial proved it, highlighting long-standing usability issues.
The main issue was in the administrative workflow after a funeral arrangement. Funeral directors found the old CRM so time-consuming that they struggled to quickly set up and manage digital products for families during the time-pressured and sensitive period before the funeral service.
Goals
- For the business
Increase online memorial activation, demonstrate adoption of Memories products, and prove their commercial value to secure a multi-year partnership with InvoCare.
Challenge
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
(phase 1)
Heuristics & Inspiration
To improve CRM usability, I reviewed the platform against heuristics and design best practices, drawing inspiration from government forms and modern CRM dashboards.
Key insights:
- The current UI lacked accessibility, with issues like poor colour contrast and inconsistent focus states.
- The lack of a clean, consistent UI made the CRM feel more difficult to use than it was, increasing the cognitive load on users.
- My research into government forms and CRM confirmed that multi-step layouts are highly effective at guiding users through complex tasks and reducing overwhelm.
USER persona
User Persona
InvoCare FD— explain packages to families, and create/manage cases on Memories Connect.
Funeral Director
Journey Map
Ideation
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Added filter and sort options
Enhanced case recognition
Include photos of the deceased
Improved case information
Included extra details like upcoming events and service date
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Redesigned form layout using vertical tabs and breaking the information into logical sections, allowing funeral directors to focus on one chunk of information at a time and easily navigate between sections without excessive scrolling
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reports tab to track product usage, engagement, and value, helping InvoCare monitor KPIs in real time
Proposed design
linking flow
Memorial QR code linking flow
Increased memorial activation
Enabled funeral directors to set up online memorials with minimal training, using a QR code flow that simplified activation
Proposed design
Design Solutions
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Enhance case search across branches by adding filters and improving the UI
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Introduce the new design system to improve UI scalability, accessibility and keep consistency across platforms and brand.
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reporting tab to track product performance, families engagement, and overall product usage.
Linking flow
Memorial QR Code
Increase memorial activation
Designed a login-free QR code feature, enabling funeral directors to scan an link a QR code to a specific memorial — Link memorials to QR codes efficiently and eliminating the need to manually log into Connect.
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
Gathered real-time usability feedback to inform quick iterative updates
Add a secondary contact field to improve follow-up and increase memorial activation rates
Validated product concepts and identified friction points during daily use
- Made upcoming events visually clearer
- Introduced product status indicators to help funeral directors track progress
Iteration
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improve products tracking
Added product state visualisation
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Focus on one chunk of information at a time with the horizontal layout.
PROJECT
Impact
Memories secured a multi-year partnership with InvoCare, rolling out across 200+ funeral homes, validating the B2B model and elevating Memories from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a core component of InvoCare’s service offering.
Cases tab
Improved usability
Repeated search events dropped by ~35%
✔️
✔️
Case form
Reduced cognitive load
Optimised navigation
↓ case creation ~12 mins to ~9.5
✔️
✔️
✔️
Reports tab
Evidence of product-market fit
Easy access to data
65% of pilot FD accessed the reporting tab weekly
✔️
✔️
✔️
Linking flow
Under 1 min to link a memorial
No training or need to manually log into Connect
71% memorial activation rate
✔️
✔️
✔️
“
“
It just feels easier to use now — I don’t have to think about where things are.
Craig Renshaw - Perth - Australia
NEXT CASE STUDY
Memorial Onboarding
Streamlining B2B workflows for funeral tech
Improved Memories Connect CRM and memorial setup flow
client
Memories Group
ROLE
Senior product designer (UX/UI, research, strategy)
team
CEO, PM, 4 Devs Marketing, Sales
Duration
6 months (2024)
location
Melbourne
output
- CRM optimisation
- Mobile web experience
IMPACT SNAPSHOT
- ↑ Memorial activation: from 22% → 71%
- ↓ Case creation time: from ~12 mins → 8.5 mins
- ↓ Case search time: from ~3 mins → 1 min
- Secured multi-year rollout to 200+ homes
Problem
The existing Memories Connect CRM was failing. A low 22% activation rate for the online memorial proved it, highlighting long-standing usability issues.
The main issue was in the administrative workflow after a funeral arrangement. Funeral directors found the old CRM so time-consuming that they struggled to quickly set up and manage digital products for families during the time-pressured and sensitive period before the funeral service.
Goals
- For funeral directors
Simplify the Memories Connect CRM to enable funeral directors to quickly create cases and efficiently activate and manage Memories products with minimal training, even under time pressure.
Challenge
How can we achieve both goals in a six-week pilot across 12 funeral homes, demonstrating enough value to secure a multi-year partnership with InvoCare?
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
Analytics Memories Products
To understand current product usage at scale and validate behavioural trends using real data, measuring activation rates, engagement patterns, and product drop-offs.
Key insights:
- Online memorial had a low activation rate, only 22% of families from InvoCare funeral homes used it.
- Memories Connect CRM search logs showed repeated queries for recently created cases, indicating poor visibility and access to active workflows.
- Case creation in Memories Connect averaged 12 minutes, revealing opportunities to streamline the process under funeral directors time pressure.
Heuristics & Inspiration
To improve CRM usability, I reviewed the platform against heuristics and design best practices, drawing inspiration from government forms and modern CRM dashboards.
Key insights:
- The current UI lacked accessibility, with issues like poor colour contrast and inconsistent focus states.
- The lack of a clean, consistent UI made the CRM feel more difficult to use than it was, increasing the cognitive load on users.
- My research into government forms and CRM confirmed that multi-step layouts are highly effective at guiding users through complex tasks and reducing overwhelm.
Funeral Director
User Persona
InvoCare FD — explain packages to families, and create/manage cases on Memories Connect.
Funeral Director
Journey Map
Ideation
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Added filter and sort options
Enhanced case recognition
Included extra details like upcoming events and service date
Improved case information
Included extra details like upcoming events and service date
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Redesigned form layout using vertical tabs and breaking the information into logical sections, allowing funeral directors to focus on one chunk of information at a time and easily navigate between sections without excessive scrolling
Initial UI
Proposed design
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reports tab to track product usage, engagement, and value, helping InvoCare monitor KPIs in real time
Proposed design
linking flow
Memorial QR code
Increased memorial activation
Enabled funeral directors to set up online memorials with minimal training, using a QR code flow that simplified activation
Proposed design
Design Solutions
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improved case search
Enhance case search across branches by adding filters and improving the UI
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Introduce a new design system to improve UI scalability, ensure WCAG accessibility, and maintain consistency across platforms and the brand.
Memories Connect CRM
Reports Tab
Reporting products performance
Introduced a reporting tab to track product performance, families engagement, and overall product usage.
Linking flow
Memorial QR Code
Increase memorial activation
Designed a login-free QR code feature, enabling funeral directors to scan an link a QR code to a specific memorial — Link memorials to QR codes efficiently and eliminating the need to manually log into Connect.
Interviews with 2 InvoCare managers
Align design decisions with business goals and frontline needs
Stakeholders lacked visibility into Memories product performance
Internal data & previous research
- Searching for cases across branches was slow
- The case creation form was a major source of frustration
Heuristics & inspiration
Apply design best practices to improve CRM usability
- Improve accessibility
- Inconsistent UI
- Clean, consistent UIs are perceived as easier to use
- Government forms and CRM dashboards inspiration: trustworthy layouts
Insights
the why?
Methods
Build on existing knowledge to identify quick wins
Before the pilot (phase 1)
After the pilot (phase 2)
Check ins with 12 funeral directors
Interviews with 6 funeral directors
Gathered real-time usability feedback to inform quick iterative updates
Add a secondary contact field to improve follow-up and increase memorial activation rates
Validated product concepts and identified friction points during daily use
- Made upcoming events visually clearer
- Introduced product status indicators to help funeral directors track progress
Iteration
Memories Connect CRM
Cases Tab
Improve products tracking
Added product state visualisation
Memories Connect CRM
Case Form
Reduce case creation time
Focus on one chunk of information at a time with the horizontal layout.
Cases tab
Improved usability
Repeated search events dropped by ~35%
✔️
✔️
Case form
Reduced cognitive load
Optimised navigation
↓ case creation ~12 mins to ~9.5
✔️
✔️
✔️
Reports tab
Evidence of product-market fit
Easy access to data
65% of pilot FD accessed the reporting tab weekly
✔️
✔️
✔️
Linking flow
Under 1 min to link a memorial
No training or need to manually log into Connect
71% memorial activation rate
✔️
✔️
✔️
“
“
It just feels easier to use now — I don’t have to think about where things are.
Craig Renshaw - Perth - Australia
KEY
Learnings
NEXT CASE STUDY
Memorial Onboarding