The problem

How might we create a seamless healthcare insurance experience so that users can find benefit information and coverage partners rapidly through an intuitive interface?

The Goal

• Help university students access healthcare information efficiently 

• Simplify the claim process for student health insurance

• Create a solution for students to find coverage partners easily

My Role

I worked on this project as the sole designer in a team of four. I was responsible for interaction design, visual design, and product branding. I also helped with user research, user interviews and ideation to drive the narrative in playback presentations. 

The Design Thinking Approach

1. Empathize - Research the Users' Needs.

Our first step was to understand our users by talking to the students to find out what they knew, wanted, and had issues with. Our findings proved to be drastic.

• For Domestic Students, out of the 24 participants, 100% did not know what coverage partners were, while 91% did not know the full benefits of what they were covered for.

• For International students, out of 8 participants, 60% of students said that they were hesitant to visit a doctor simply because they did not know if they were covered.

Based on these stats, we created a persona, Miguel Vasquez. 

2. Define - State the Users' Needs and Problems.

With Miguel's pain points identified, we set out to create a defined HMW statement:

How might we create a seamless healthcare insurance experience so that users can find benefit information and coverage partners rapidly through an intuitive interface?

3. Ideate - Challenge Assumptions and Create Ideas.

To answer the HMW question, we decided to Ideate as a group. Together, we brainstormed ideas to help Miguel and developed 8 different concepts.

While many of the ideas were creative, we had to make a usable product and to do so; we had to complete the dot voting activity on the most feasible and impactful of the 8.

Based on its feasibility and impactfulness, our top three choices are:

1. To present benefits information in an easy to understand way using visuals,

2. To make students aware of coverage partners and give students the ability to find them and

3. To give students the ability to track benefit usage so they are always aware of whether they are covered.

4. Prototype - Start to Create Solutions.

With the ideas in mind, we moved on to prototyping. 

We started by creating a user flow to understand the app's journey. We then went through multiple design iterations, trying to address Miguel's needs best. 

First, we created a low-fidelity prototype with the app's base features. Then, we conducted a usability test with 8 users to identify quirks and issues with the initial design. Our feedback indicated that we must clarify language, improve the navigation, and add more features. 

Low-fidelity Prototypes

After the initial user feedback, we went back to prototyping and designed a medium-fidelity prototype. It had rough layouts of the new features from our research.

Mid-fidelity Prototypes

• Task 1 : Finding a coverage partner

• Task 2 : Checking personalized information

5. Validate - Try Your Solutions Out

We took our mid-fidelity prototypes to 22 representative users at the University of Toronto with 3 tasks:

• Find a coverage partner nearby

• Find healthcare information

• Check claims information after a visit

Finding coverage information took an average of 16 seconds, and a nearby coverage partner another 36 seconds. That meant most of the insurance search process took users under a minute.

The completion rate was equally insightful. All tasks achieved a 100% success rate, with only 2 student participants requiring a hint on the last task.

Our research indicated that users understood the dynamics and flow of the app and were able to utilize it according to our initial hills.

fINAL LOOK - hIGH-fidelity Prototypes

tAKEAWAYS

This project challenged us to create, tinker, and relentlessly test possible solutions for our users — and to repeat that cycle as often as necessary — until we develop solutions that people will use.

From all this, I’ve learned that, as designers, it's our job to solve problems daily and create alternative solutions. We can’t let our problems be our story. Applying design principles to my own life made things possible.

Should this app be further developed, I would:

• Revisit the design to add more help options and settings for navigation

• Change confusing language and terms to match better real-world

• Integrate the Claims process into the app more thoroughly

• Do more usability tests!