OverviewCigna Healthcare is a health services company committed to helping our nation's Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries live healthier, more active lives through personalized, affordable and easy-to-use health care solutions.
My Role I was the experience lead on the project where I managed 2 visual designers and 2 UX designers. I was responsible for the experience design of the solution and the quality of all experience deliverables. I ensured consistency in design, proper use of the design system, setting up, running and analyzing user research, leading stakeholder workshops and prioritizing features to determine MVP. The project lasted 3 months. Project Needs User Experience Design |
ChallengeCigna Healthcare wanted to create an experience that made their customers stay with them through the duration of their Medicare needs. Cigna however, did not have much of an online presence for its members and the one that was available lacked value-added services.
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ActionUnderstanding the Business, Industry and CompetitionUnderstand the business and business outcomes
I worked with stakeholders across Cigna to better understand who their users were and any assumptions/research they had about their users. It was important to also come to an agreement on the goals and KPIs important to the business. I also worked to understand what the vision was for Cigna in 5-10 years. I led the design of the interview framework and workshops. Understand the Industry
I wanted to understand the healthcare industry as a whole and what types of issues people and the industry face. I directed the team to conduct desk research to learn more about Medicare. Understand the Competition
To better understand what their direct competitors provided, I led the team in conducting a competitive analysis. While we were able to view some Medicare websites we weren't able to access to Medicare portals available to members. We did however, look at tours available on websites and read about the various features available to Medicare members. This provided us the ability to determine where the client needs improvement and what new features help leapfrog them above their competition. I also asked the team to ask their friends and family who may have access to other portals if they would be willing to provide us a view of the portals they used. Developing Deep InsightsUnderstanding Behavior
To get a better understanding of how the tools were being used today, I contacted the analytics teams and call center teams at Cigna. Unfortunately, they did not have coded data from the call center and their analytics had not been setup in a way that we could draw insights. Instead I had the team talk directly to call center agents to learn more about what they thought the biggest issues and opportunities were. I was able to find some market research that helped the team and I determine what features and services make people purchase from their Medicare provider as well as leave their Medicare provider. In that data, there was also key metrics on technology use among customers and non-customers. I directed the team to use this information to craft to begin crafting the qualitative user research. Conducting User Research
Due to the limited timeframe and the client’s hesitation to provide us member information, I directed the team to conduct friends and family research. The goal of the research was to understand issues seniors face in terms of healthcare costs and ensuring they are healthy, in order to ensure we provide alluring value-added services. First I led a discussion on what we wanted to learn, then we collaboratively decided what types of activities and questions we could ask. Because we would need to rely on friends of families who were not in the area we settled on user interviews over the phone/skype. I led the quick and dirty research, where the team and I talked to 10 seniors, 2 caregivers (those who take care of a senior using Medicare) and 2 brokers. During our research planning discussions, the team and I choose these types of people based on the information on key segments to learn from provided by the client. |
What We LearnedKeeping abreast of healthcare costs was one of the biggest issues seniors face along with drug adherence; however we came away with several key points.
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Developing a VisionUsing what was learned, I led the team in creating an experience vision that helps users take control of costs and medications. The first step and MVP is the portal itself; however, there are other parts of the experience such as a chatbot, text messaging and other parts of service design that need to explored further. I created guiding principles to ensure that the design met the needs of its users. As a result of the interviews, I also worked with the team to provide a series of recommendations that would help the experience create value for its members (this is an overview without the detail):
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Digital User Experience DesignAvailable components
There were UI design components in place (which did not include the codebase) for other Cigna products that we utilized for this project. However, the Cigna team had not defined symbols within the sketch files, had not provided guidance on how and when to use each component, and it had not been created in Angular code within a Git repository. To keep the project moving, I directed the team to create sketch libraries and work with a front-end developer to create a Git repository for the various components. I also directed the team to develop documentation that defined when components should be used and why. |
Helping the Team PrioritizeI led the team to develop a set of recommended features that would help the experience create value for its members (this is an overview without the detail). I then worked with the business, developers and team to develop a prioritization for those features.
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Turning Sketches into DesignsTo begin to design the experience, I led design jam sessions where each person sketched on the whiteboard. I led the team in discussions about which elements were needed to truly improve the experience. I led the team in putting those sketches in front of real users to iterate on them quickly. Once they were vetted by seniors, I directed the team to put the sketches into a prototyping tool using components we built and were modified.
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One of the biggest issues was letting people know if and when they will be in the coverage gap and what types of options they have in order to better manage their medication costs.
I led the team in thinking through the visualization to help users understand what’s happening with their medication costs. We used tested the designs with older coworkers and caregivers. Based on the understanding that the dates were important we added more information around time. We also wanted to include the information in context and have the bare minimum information that could be added to by the user and ended up with a more contextual interactive visualization.
Providing Key Information UpfrontI led the team in designing a dashboard to help users take control of issues and concerns, reduce surprise costs and make better healthcare decisions.
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Finding the Right CareTo make it easy for people to find care, I led the design of the find a doctor feature to enable members to search for doctors in a way that make sense for them (type of doctor, reason for visit, doctor name). The design needed to also help members easily identify the different ways they can search for a doctor. Finally, it was important to provide them the type of information that is important to making a decision in an easy and scannable way.
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Estimating the Out-of-Pocket Cost of Medication Each YearTo help seniors better track their out of pocket costs for the year, the designed help seniors understand the different payers, provide visual hierarchy for medications and develop a personalized lists driven from claims
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Results
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