Priority Health Member App

Client: Priority Health
Role: Lead UX Designer
Platforms: Angular, Bootstrap CSS

Summary

Priority Health established a business case for the need of a dedicated member experience to help their members self serve online with common tasks like checking their spending, accessing their member ID, viewing medical claims, and getting estimated costs for procedures. This was a solid business case but there was a lack of clarity on scope and a roadmap to guide what should be prioritized.

I partnered with a research agency to help identify the top needs of our members, and translate those needs to digital tools. The research agency interviewed a sample of Priority Health members and non members in a generative study to identify key areas of opportunities. The study also led to four user archetypes that became the center of our design thinking.

Evaluative Research

In parallel with the generative study, I worked side-by-side with the agency on evaluative research, which encompassed moderated card sorting, tree testing, and A/B preference UI testing to establish a solid information architecture. We tested a total 44 participants over the aforementioned testing methods.

Strategy

Supporting multiple business segments within a single experience came with many challenges. For example, designing an indicator bar to visually show how much a member spent during their plan year and how much they have remaining before they meet their deductible had to be validated by each segment (individual, medicare, medicaid, and commercial) and each plan within each segment. Each segment had their own business requirements and government guidelines. We first needed to identify what tasks completed by members were shared across all segments, or majority. Those tasks became our top priorities.

This posed a problem though. We had a great information architecture (IA), but our minimal viable product (MVP) would only include a small portion of the IA within the navigation. We needed to rethink design patterns that were already tested. We regrouped and came up with a new IA that still aligned with the research and place the planned pieces within a revised navigation pattern for desktop and mobile.

As with all new products, business goals can change during the build phase. Priority Health launched a new Next Best Actions platform and wanted to utilize the member app as one of its primary delivery methods. This actually worked in our favor to "fill the gaps" a bit more for our MVP release with a new NBA card section within our navigation that was dynamic and personalized for the user. It was a big win.

The UX team made up of myself and a range of four to six contract designers, worked in two-week design sprints to wireframe, test, design and prototype prioritized features and functionality for the Priority Health member app. Most our time was spent in a small room surrounded by whiteboards and sticky note pads. As a lead, I ensured we spent a healthy amount of time thinking, mapping, and connecting on the whiteboard before we starting wireframing and pushing pixels. We held two design sessions per week, and almost always had a subject matter expert present to support during the solution process and during design reviews.

We worked closely with the product owner, business analyst, and developers throughout the entire design to build process. It is important to me that developers are involved early so they can weigh in on technical feasibility before getting too far along in the design process.

Usability testing was determined based on the complexity of the design. Designing a common modal or form didn't warrant a test as long as we follow standard usability patterns users are familiar with. Testing is more valuable when validation is needed for new and complex design concepts. Testing methods range from first-click usability test, surveys, A/B tests, and prototype success testing.

ID Card Design (Example)

We first documented the types of ID cards and the reasons a member would need to access their ID card.

Next, we did some benchmarking against other insurance ID cards.

After gathering all the information, we began exploring some different concepts that would translate a physical card into a digital one.

After many usability tests and iterating on a couple more successful ideas, We designed and released version one of Priority Health's first ever digital ID card. This card was one of the most accessed tools within the app over the first two years in production. During those two years we had a lot of feedback that proved that members never really saw it as their "insurance card" and was confused by how to use it when visiting the doctor's office. We took that feedback and went back to the basics. We not only found that our members have more confidence and comfort using a physical card, but also discovered an opportunity to implement additional cards that our members would need access to as well.

In version two, we created an ID card springboard for quick access to any ID card associated with a member’s plan. This provides a scalable solution for Priority Health to expand the use of ID cards with future partners and solutions. We also included the ability to add ID cads to your mobile wallet, allowing the user to bypass logging into the app and easily access their cards when they need them most.

To help us better understand the user's experience interacting with an ID card, we mapped out a user flow for a high-level view of the experience.

Ongoing improvement & Feature Builds

The Priority Health member app is maintained and executed through a scaled agile framework method. All work is planned for the next two to three years and is prioritized throughout each year of product increments (PI). Each PI is 10 weeks long and is initiated through PI planning days. PI days is two full days of development planning for the next 10 weeks. The design team works ahead of the development teams by a product increment or more establishing a strategy, design, and a handoff package for our development partners to estimate their work from.

The design team also works with our member app support team that responds to bugs and usability issues within the app. These issues are usually addressed in flight versus the PI planning method.

The app in production

The Priority Health app is available on iOS, Android, and the web (responsive).