I modernized a healthcare platform where brokers would go to keep track of their assigned employer group health care accounts. The previous version of the platform was not a great user experience as there was a lot of visual congestion. When given the opportunity to redesign the experience, I jumped at the chance.
When the ICHRA (individual coverage health reimbursement arrangement) platform was first built, it did not meet the needs of its users - brokers. They ensure all their accounts are in good standing. They mentioned pain points to my manager who then approached me to redesign the platform and demo it to the client to gauge interest. If it went well, they would invest to have the new version of the platform built. Let's see if I what I made was worth their investment...
A thorough review uncovered three areas in need of improvement.
Project Requirements
There was one official requirement provided previously: make sure the table columns can expand. Other than that, there was no direction. To get firm requirements, I decided to encourage the users to voice their frustrations. This would allow me to not design in vain.
Customer Involvement
The only involvement in past efforts was from internal team members. The client was not engaged which resulted in pain points not being addressed. The lack of engagement created an inconsistent feedback loop and client suggestions often fell through the cracks.
Experience and Aesthetic
Some of the workflows for tasks were in modals while the others couldn't be accessed unless you expanded the rows. Additionally, the design language was not consistent. I knew correcting these would make a big difference in the look and feel of the platform.
Prior to meeting with the users to hear their requests, I decided to conduct a heuristic evaluation of the current UI. Using Nielsen's Heuristics, I would identify any obvious UI problems. These problems would be where I initially focused my design efforts.
Heuristic evaluation of the main table in the ICHRA platform.
The users expressed a lot of frustrations. To assist with tracking the frustrations, I created a feature table to determine wants from needs. The table would deem what was doable and in budget and what would cause constraints and delays. Two of the requests were actual needs and fell within the scope so I designed around those first.
Chart determining if user request is a want or a need. Only captures requests that impact the design portion of project
I was able to synthesize my research into a design strategy that would merge heuristics and user needs together. The design would solve both issues - this was the most optimal route to achieve success.
User:
Add functionality and enhance the UI to meet or exceed competitor standards.
Business:
Build a solution that meets internal and external requirements and the client will provide funding for and other clients want to adopt.
Target
Audience:
Brokers and TPAs
Competition's advantage:
Providing crucial data at the highest level possible
Key Concepts:
Open, clean and minimal components, utilize white space
Concepts to Avoid:
Clustered, densely packed components
Branding:
Utilize design system to ensure consistency with other billing products. This will also tackle:
- Layout
- Spacing
- Iconography
- Button Hierarchy
- Text Hierarchy
To help resolve the heuristic issues and build an enhanced UI, I decide to utilize the in-house design system. This would establish consistency with other products in the future as they each will go through an enhancement or modernization effort as well.
The testing portion would be completed during demos with the client and perspective users. The demos would validate if my design was solving their pain points and meeting their needs. I would utilize all feedback provided to iterate where applicable until we reached a consensus.
Utilizing an in house design system allowed me to update many of the outdated components within the platform. This solved some heuristic issues and modernized the aesthetic.
Walking through demos and refining based on feedback, I was able to execute the design strategy. Some of the solutions are shown below.
Expanding a row, users can navigate and digest information in a much cleaner fashion.
Users can see the status of all their assigned accounts at the main table level rather than needing to expand each row.
Newly designed menus make it easier to view and take action on their account and other important information.
The new platform has a simplified look. With the help of the design system, fonts, buttons, icons and layouts are much more consistent creating a unified look. By creating consistency, the platform is easy to learn and predict increasing adoption and ease of use.
One of the main points of emphasis was the table. By creating visual hierarchy with the typography and making the cells taller, the table became much easier to visually digest and provided the information with much needed white space. This made the table clutter free and aesthetically pleasing.
Using a design system provided opportunities to incorporate new components that made the UI intuitive while providing an up to date look and feel. Additionally, some components like badges and alerts added important context to key informational elements.
