The purpose of decision support is to help employees understand the most suitable benefits for their individual needs based on their health and financial situations. It provides personalized guidance on coverage that aligns with their circumstances and helps them understand the differences between available benefit plans. Decision support also offers valuable data that consultants and employers can use to shape and optimize benefit packages for more tailored and compelling offerings to employees.
My Role
As the sole product designer, I identified the best path for this feature, considering the project's time frame, scope, and technical debt. I collaborated with the development team to document and address significant constraints. By organizing cross-departmental meetings, I ensured alignment and clarity throughout the process. Additionally, I created workflows and mockups to guide development while balancing innovation with practicality. My role required strategic thinking, precise execution, and continuous collaboration to deliver the feature on time.
The Challenges
With the rise of OpenAI and its rapid integration into countless industries, businesses everywhere are eager to incorporate it into their applications. At the same time, as healthcare systems continue to evolve; studies reveal increasing confusion among individuals trying to navigate the complexities of health insurance. Many employees find it overwhelming to determine which plans align with their health, lifestyle, and financial needs, often resulting in choices that don't fully support them or their families.
Adding to this challenge is a push from the sales team to modernize the legacy application. They emphasized the need for a cleaner, more intuitive design to boost user engagement and drive sales. This presents a formidable challenge: how can we address the business goal of integrating a new tool while simultaneously overhauling a large, complex, and outdated application to both satisfy the sales team and provide users with confidence and clarity?
There's one more twist—the timeline to accomplish all of this? A mere three months. Yes, you read that right. Three months! It sounds like a job for someone with some magic up their sleeve (cue the Bewitched theme music).
High-level Requirements:
Black Hole Adventures
To meet our tight deadline, I knew the first step was understanding what our system could handle. I immediately collaborated with the engineering team to evaluate the technical feasibility, identify system limitations, and ensure compatibility with proposed solutions. This partnership allowed me to focus on researching options aligned with our scope and timeline. By gaining a thorough understanding of our technical debt and constraints, I was able to streamline my design process, discarding impractical ideas early on and transforming ambitious visions into concrete, workable goals that could be implemented effectively.
We also uncovered a HIPPA concern regarding saving user answers. As an HR platform, we can save and store information such as first and last name, SSN, date of birth, and addresses for each family member for which the employee designates benefits. Still, for the healthcare support AI tool to work effectively, it needs to know health-related questions. How do we hold this information long enough to populate a result and allow the user to select, save, and wipe it afterward?
Handling storage information was a sensitive topic, but I recognized that a smooth user experience required at least retaining user data within the session. This approach allowed users to navigate back and forth during enrollment without re-entering their responses. After further investigation, we confirmed that saving previous recommendations and aggregated statistics would not violate any regulations, provided they didn't include any directly identifiable personal information.
During this time, I also documented specific scenarios where users would interact with the open enrollment platform and need benefit recommendations. Each scenario carried its own workflow, which helped us notice any possible similarities we could combine. The main benefits were medical, life, voluntary additions, and retirement investments. Other benefits, such as dental, vision, etc., need statistical recommendations, not personal ones.
Key Takeaways:
User Flows
The user flow illustrates the user's journey through the product, detailing every step they take from the initial entry point to the final interaction.
Flowchart
A flowchart is a visual tool that illustrates the steps of a process. We used it to represent the technical flow of data, including how it is transferred, stored, and processed within the system.
User Personas
A user persona is a research-based representation of a target audience's needs and behaviors, used to guide product development.
The Solution
Armed with data and considering the technical constraints of the application's distributed technology, I started brainstorming ways to incorporate the Benefits Decision Support feature into our platform without disrupting existing workflows. The feature needed to complement the platform's existing design and functionality while enhancing its value for both the user and the business needs. The business was adamant about restricting external navigation, thus keeping the user engaged within the page, so this left me with only one option.
Why did the modal break up with the webpage?
It felt like it was always the center of attention but never truly understood : p
Although not my primary choice, it was the most logical one with the present constraints. With the concept defined, I translated various ideas into actionable wireframes and allowed the team to brainstorm and take vote on the best option.
Using Figma, I designed ideas to illustrate the Benefits Decision Support tool at the various key points of the enrollment journey. This allowed me to quickly present an idea, retrieve feedback, and avoid wasting time I did not have. I then created high-fidelity mockups to better illustrate a workable feature; most people are visual. This process helps the stakeholders analyze and conceptualize future features.
The Build
Collaboration played a vital role during the build phase. I worked hand-in-hand with developers to ensure seamless integration with the application. Key challenges included making the modal and its elements fully responsive, meeting accessibility standards, and maintaining a straightforward workflow.
Because of the timeframe, I handed the development team a demo that contained cherry-picked HTML, CSS, and JS files to assist and maximize the development team's work on integration.
We were thrilled when the first integrated build displayed personalized recommendations directly within the platform's UI. This milestone validated our approach and demonstrated that new solutions could effectively coexist with legacy systems.
While some UI adjustments were made to address new stakeholder requests, the overall UX workflow remained consistent and stable.
What did I learn?
The integration was a success. Still, the journey taught me invaluable lessons in balancing new features with system constraints, aligning cross-functional teams, and prioritizing seamless user experiences. Post-launch feedback underscored the feature's impact: employees expressed appreciation for the added clarity and confidence it brought to their benefits decisions.
Although we couldn't fully update the UI/UX as envisioned by marketing, I proactively designed a detailed mockup for future projects. This mockup addresses the complete scope of their initial request, ensuring the foundation is ready for further enhancements when resources and timelines allow.
I hope this integration evolves, leveraging emerging AI capabilities to enhance personalization and expand its utility beyond open enrollment, providing year-round employee support.
Press Release
Optavise, a one-stop-shop for employee benefits programs combining products, technology, and expert guidance, announced today that it is further helping employees to make informed benefits enrollment decisions by enhancing its decision support capabilities within its benefits administration platform.
Read more
Mgr, External Communications
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