UnifiHealth

Creating a better way to manage healthcare through prioritizing transparency.

Time

10 Weeks

Team

1 Project Manager
3 Product Designers

Role

Research
UX
Visual

Deliverables

Design System
Figma Prototype

We designed a healthcare management web portal for employers and a health insurance mobile app for employees.

This was a project at the DALI Lab for our client, UnifiHealth, a health insurance startup. I collaborated with two other co-designers, conducting primary and secondary research, producing wireframes, and administering usability testing. In addition, I was also the project manager for this project, leading our design team in strategizing feature prioritizations and creating effective minimum viable product timelines.

PROBLEM

Healthcare is complicated, stressful, and confusing.

UnifiHealth found a need for health insurance with a focus on affordability and transparency for small businesses, and came to us to create an employer web management platform and an employee health insurance mobile application.
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We discovered that small business employers wanted to find affordable healthcare coverage for their employees, but lacked time to efficiently understand and navigate their healthcare administration. Meanwhile, employees felt perplexed by healthcare and surprised by unanticipated fees or high deductibles.

OPPORTUNITY

How might we make optimize healthcare management to be simple and accessible for small business employers and employees?

Solution

UnifiHealth

A management web portal and an employee mobile app that prioritizes transparency to better healthcare.

Employer Web Portal

To help employers receive timely, transparent communication and facilitate efficient healthcare allocation, the employer web portal leverages visual transparency that prioritizes relevant content to help users quickly and intuitively manage their healthcare administration.

Employee Mobile App

In order to avoid unforeseen expenses and help employees understand their healthcare coverage, the employee mobile app provides an one-stop solution to their healthcare access. Through straightforward visualizations and helpful references, users can easily understand and access their healthcare.

UnifiHealth

Easing the pains of healthcare management by prioritizing transparency.

Process

Research

Competitive Research

UnifiHealth is a health insurance startup for small businesses with a focus on simplicity and affordability. They wanted the DALI Lab to synthesize the facets of their idea into a tangible, user-oriented digital experience. As our team of undergraduate designers had no prior understanding of healthcare, we began by researching how UnifiHealth differed from their competitors and compared different approaches to healthcare management.
From looking at competitor platforms, we analyzed what features they did well and what features could be improved upon.

Research

User Interviews

However, we needed to find out whether the features from our competitive research would be applicable to our specific user demographic and the UnifiHealth model. Our clients had already interviewed 35 CEOs, brokers, HR managers, and insurance salespeople. We synthesized their user interview transcripts, pulling out key insights and potential feature ideas. To further understand the current user experience of navigating healthcare, we also conducted additional 14 in-depth user interviews with:
Small Business Employers
New Employees
Experienced Employees
Our questions sought to gather information about the current experience of navigating healthcare, the limitations of existing management platforms, and the necessary components of healthcare insurance. To identify key themes and pain points, we used affinity diagrams to organize insights.

Research

User Personas & Empathy Maps

Based on user interviews, we created empathy maps and user personas that helped us further understand our target users and empathize with their perspectives.

Ideate

Needs

We synthesized our qualitative data and user interview insights, distilling key insights about the pain points of healthcare for small business owners and their employees.
Small Business Employer
There is no timely, transparent communication between the provider and the employer.
Small businesses need to be efficient with their allocation of healthcare resources.
Employers need to be able to keep track of the claims, documentation, and funds available for each of their employees.
Small Business Employees
Unforeseen out-of-pocket expenses and high deductibles breed resentment and confusion.
Employees often lack an in-depth understanding of their plan’s coverage.

DEFINE

POV
Statements

Small business employers need transparent communication in order to provide affordable healthcare for their employees.

Small business employees need help understanding their insurance plan in order to access and navigate their healthcare.

Ideate

Goals

Simplicity
Users should easily understand healthcare information, and their interactions should eliminate the confusion and anxiety surrounding healthcare.
Transparency
User interactions should be helpful in guiding comprehension of key healthcare information, gaining the trust of users and helping them feel at ease.

Ideate

MVP Elements & User Flow

Given the tight constraints of time for this project, we decided to prioritize these MVP elements for the employer web portal and employee mobile app. As the project manager, I compiled the Feature Specifications document, communicating with our clients on how the insights from user testing guided our prioritization of features.
Our team came together to break down the MVP features into user task flows, with three key task flows for each platform.

Ideate

Brainstorm

We drew up different paper sketches to figure out the best way to visually present the various features.

Ideate

Low Fidelity Wireframes

To quickly evaluate our ideas, we selected our favorite paper sketches and translated them into greyscale mockups. As our clients were still figuring out the content for the UnifiHealth platform, our primary mockups were heavily utilized to identify the relevant content and features that users wanted through qualitative user interviews and usability testing.
Designing the Employer Navigation
We experimented with two ways to construct the employer dashboard, creating low-fidelity Figma mock-ups. Then we conducted qualitative user interviews to understand what information would be valued in the dashboard and which orientation would best facilitate the platform structure.
Left Navigation Bar
Top Navigation Bar
Usability Findings - User interviews revealed which information had value being displayed for the dashboard, which helped us determine the prioritization of the menu items. We decided to proceed with the top navigation bar because the 'F-Shaped Pattern of Reading on the Web’ meant the vertical scanning direction of the top orientation facilitated item prioritization. Furthermore, the top navigation allowed us to have more control over the user journey.
Employer Content and Testing Approachability
Additional qualitative user interviews helped reveal what content was needed in the Employee Management and Finances pages. We also wanted to test whether the users found the content to be easily comprehensible and approachable.
Employee Management
Finances
Usability Findings - Users found the visual organization straightforward, but wanted more information that gave comprehensive overviews about their total enrolled employees and their cost factors. Furthermore, we realized that some users had questions about the financial terminology, and noted that the designs needed to include more helpful references to be approachable.
Designing Employee Home Screen
Usability Findings - We found that the insurance card shouldn't be the primary focus for the home screen, but should still remain easily accessible. As the app is an all-encompassing multipurpose platform for healthcare, it made sense to leverage the home screen as a quick access menu. Based on our clients' feedback, we also realized that the plan information needed to be more detailed, and could benefit from having a separate page.
Validating Employee Content
The other core features of the employee mobile application included financial information, finding care, and help. Our qualitative user interviews were centered around validating existing content and ensuring that necessary features were included.
Finances
Usability Findings - For the Finance page, users found the information clear and enjoyed the data visualization. However, we found that the Care page required more care-centric content such as price, a, and ratings to increase user trust. For the Help page, users noted that the FAQ was helpful, but it didn't fully address their confusion surrounding healthcare terminology. Users also wanted a way to contact an actual person for support.

PROTOTYPE & TEST

Visual Design System

Based on the primary colors and the logo that our clients provided, we constructed the style guide as we moved unto high-fidelity designs.

PROTOTYPE & TEST

High Fidelity Prototype

Employer Web Portal
One of the main pain points that employers encountered was the lack of timely, transparent communication and difficulties in being efficient with their healthcare allocation. To address their pain points, the employer web portal leverages visual transparency that prioritizes relevant content to help users quickly and intuitively manage their healthcare administration.
Dashboard
The employer dashboard visually communicates key updates of valuable information in a simple, easily read manner. It provides overviews of finances, employee allocations, pending action items, and important deadlines.
Employee Management
Employers can quickly keep track of the key employee information through the visualized overview screen. Through the data management features, employers can manage the claims, documentation, and funds available for each of their employees.
Finances
To deliver transparency and lower costs, the breakdowns of costs, claims, and trends are visually comprehensible and transparent. This facilitates efficient allocation of healthcare resources and incentivizes cost-saving behavior. The question icons provide an in-depth explanation of the graph and how the information can be used to save costs for the user.
Plan & Help
The Plan and Help pages add simplicity and transparency to the complicated topic of healthcare by clarifying the coverage, providing quick access to further support, answering frequently asked questions, and eliminating confusion around healthcare terminology.

PROTOTYPE & TEST

High Fidelity Prototype

Employee Mobile App
Employees noted their main points as unforeseen expenses and lack of understanding their healthcare plans. To address their pain points, the employee mobile app is an one-stop solution to their healthcare access, helping users understand and utilize their healthcare with straightforward visualizations and key information through focusing on simplicity and transparency.
Home & Plan
The Home screen provides quick access to the essential parts of utilizing healthcare such as the insurance card and the Plan page. The Plan page fosters an in-depth understanding of their plan’s coverage, transparently communicating their monthly costs, benefits, and coverage information.
Finances
To prevent unforeseen out-of-pocket expenses, the Finances page provides detailed information, keeping users up-to-date on their billing statements and deductible status. Users are able to directly pay their bills within the app, as well as see their overall financial summaries.
Finding Care
When searching for care, the directory provides cost, availability, and ratings for each doctor in an effort to provide a transparent care experience. Users can be redirected to schedule appointments with the doctor's office.
Help
The Help page provides a variety of resources to quickly answer any questions users may have. It includes options to quickly contact a UnifiHealth rep and a list of Frequently Asked Questions. Furthermore, as a main point of confusion was healthcare terminology, we included a friendly dictionary to help guide users.

PROTOTYPE & TEST

Usability Insights

With our wireframes, we conducted usability testing with undergraduate students, faculty, and administrators. Based on our findings, we made the following change:
Employee Mobile App: Navigation Bar & Site Architecture
We found that our previous organization created multiple entrance points that buried key features and created extra steps for the user. Therefore, we decided to get rid of the navigation bar, and reorganize the Home screen to provide access to the main features of the UnifiHealth mobile app.

Reflect

Takeaways & Next Steps

The goal of UnifiHealth is to help small businesses access and optimize their healthcare through a focus on simplicity and affordability. Throughout our usability testing cycles with healthcare professionals, we were able to iterate and continuously improve on our designs. We heard amazing feedback from seasoned healthcare industry experts and our clients, while learning a lot about the healthcare industry throughout the process. As our designs were instrumental for sourcing the content, it was fascinating to see how our wireframes could be used to help feature development and how the content influenced design iterations.

This project was a difficult challenge to tackle, but it was extremely rewarding. Especially since our team had no prior background expertise in healthcare, the experience of condensing a complicated healthcare insurance process into a streamlined, accessible platform deepened my trust of the design process. Furthermore, hearing firsthand about the struggles of navigating healthcare made me realize the importance of prioritizing user-centric design, especially for critically paramount systems such as healthcare.

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