Although we didn't get the level of customization and guidance we had hoped for, we ended up with a pretty solid solution to allow for comparison.
Where we landed
We also spent time designing the landing page to make sure it provided a warm-enough welcome and informative introduction to who we are. We also added a "How We Help" page to give further insight into the products and services we offer.
The design we ended up with is now in it's second year of use, with very few tweaks and low effort this time around, which was the goal!
2016
Redesigning the Open Enrollment Portal
Overview
THE TASK
Redesign the Open Enrollment portal to accommodate any number of plans, while still allowing members easy comparison and comprehension.
When we designed our last Open Enrollment portal in 2015 (which was actually our second), we had quickly gone from one client with 85 members to 7 clients with about 35,000 members. Even though this was a huge increase, our clients still only had a maximum of four plans that their employees needed to compare. Now we were accustomed to our new brand, and had more than 15 clients to design for.
THE TIMELINE
Research that fueled this redesign happened earlier in the year, but the actual design of the new portal lasted for about four months.
Design a site that:
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Can accommodate any number of plans
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Is flexible enough to describe any nuances that arise
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Serves our member’s needs: compare plans, benefits & ultimately make an informed decision
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Establishes Collective Health as a trusted source in our member’s healthcare journey
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Can be delivered on time and with the highest level of quality
THE GOAL
Assist with prototyping and user testing
Concepting and brainstorming
UX
Visual exploration
Color exploration
Assisting engineering with implementation
MY ROLE
THE TEAM
Basically the entire company
Designers
Full-Time
Other Contributors
Extensive user research earlier in the year showed that while member satisfaction was high, there was lots of room for improvement. And new clients with more than four plans necessitated a re-think of how we were displaying plans.
Why Re-design?
We also wanted to work more closely with Marketing to examine the Member Journey and the portal's role in a member's introduction to us.
The Sky's the Limit!
(for now)
Together with Marketing, the OE team let loose on ideas.
VISUAL EXPLORATION
With structure and interaction sorted, it was all-hands-on-deck for visual exploration.
This was a little video I made for a company presentation. Warning: some super-rockin' tunes accompany this video. Buckle your seatbelt and get ready for a righteous visual ride.
Opportunities
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Going forward, we vowed to make sure we communicate designs as early as possible, and collaborate with other departments before even starting digital designs.
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We were having productive weekly check-ins with all the stakeholders, but learned when we go into the details of the designs we needed to do this even more.
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Sometimes this just happens, Its impossible to know what you don’t know, so we didn't want to beat up ourselves or others who may have withheld concerns.
Getting a "no" for the guide idea was a big setback for our team. However, it was a good (if painful) learning experience for us all.
From our research and collaboration with Marketing, we came to realize that many members are still confused by their plan options. As a company, our goal is to help our members understand and navigate their care, so we thought of creating a questionnaire that members could answer and would point them to a recommended plan.
But would it work?
WE'VE GOT AN IDEA
Back to the drawing board
We started to reframe the problem, and consult other departments before we got too far invested in an idea.
After collaborating with Eng and Ops we came up with more ideas and were confident that we were heading in the right direction. So we tested, refined, reviewed, and repeated.
Long story short, no.
