Reimagining Search: helping Aetna members find the healthcare they need
UX Design
Client
Aetna, a CVS Health company
My roles
Design Lead
UX Designer & Strategist
Lead Workshop Creator & Facilitator
Secondary UX Researcher
UX Designer & Strategist
Lead Workshop Creator & Facilitator
Secondary UX Researcher
Other teammates
1 Senior Content Strategist
1 Senior UI Designer
1 Senior UX Researcher
1 Senior UI Designer
1 Senior UX Researcher
Context
I joined Aetna’s Provider Search team at the end of 2018 as a senior UX designer and became the Design Team Lead. I quickly learned that the company’s 39 million health insurance customers were consistently having a very hard time finding the right doctor, nurse, dentist, therapist, clinic, etc. for their health needs and budget.
I was tasked with leading my team in designing solutions and features that would allow Aetna’s customers to more easily search for and quickly find the right care within the Aetna web portal and mobile app.
This initiative had many phases over the three years I was on the Provider Search team. Throughout those three years, my team went through nine managers, two Digital Experience directors, a merger with CVS Health, and the pandemic. I was able to steadily guide the work through the internal shifts, both in-person and then remotely beginning in March of 2020.
Here’s some of my work that greatly improved the provider search experience and user success metrics…
I was tasked with leading my team in designing solutions and features that would allow Aetna’s customers to more easily search for and quickly find the right care within the Aetna web portal and mobile app.
This initiative had many phases over the three years I was on the Provider Search team. Throughout those three years, my team went through nine managers, two Digital Experience directors, a merger with CVS Health, and the pandemic. I was able to steadily guide the work through the internal shifts, both in-person and then remotely beginning in March of 2020.
Here’s some of my work that greatly improved the provider search experience and user success metrics…
Project: Creating a customized search landing page
Problem statement
When I joined the team, Search existed only in the global site navigation and the UX research revealed how customers hardly interacted with it because it didn't stand oud to them. The idea of building a new Search section of the app had already been proposed, and I guided my team on making it a reality.
Project goals
• Discover top needs of both the business and users
• Conduct UX research to capture usability metrics for the current search experience
• Create and test a V1 of the new Search Landing Page
• Iterate on the designs to incorporate testing feedback
• Launch an MVP of the Search Landing Page
• Collaborate with Product Management to create the roadmap for future features targeted at improving metrics for top tasks in Search
• Conduct UX research to capture usability metrics for the current search experience
• Create and test a V1 of the new Search Landing Page
• Iterate on the designs to incorporate testing feedback
• Launch an MVP of the Search Landing Page
• Collaborate with Product Management to create the roadmap for future features targeted at improving metrics for top tasks in Search
Design approach
I use the Double Diamond framework from the British Design Council as an overarching guide to plan and structure my projects:
As the Design Lead on this project, I was responsible for guiding the overall process and acting as the main point person and presenter to our Product Managers and the larger organization. I led my team through the Double Diamond's phases with the following activities:
1. Stakeholder interviews
The UX Researcher on our team and I met with the Head of Product and Director of Digital Experience Design to understand how the current Search experience was failing from a business perspective.
2. UXR benchmark tests for top tasks
Our UX Researcher and I designed and conducted a card-sort test with 80 people to determine which tasks were most important to them. We compared those top tasks to the business needs…they pleasantly matched nearly one-to-one! Then we designed and ran a comprehensive benchmark test with 12 participants (1-hour per participant) to assess the current search experience's success rate for the top tasks.
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3. Heuristic evaluation and comparative research
I conducted analysis of 12 Search Landing Pages from both competitor insurance sites and other types of eCommerce sites. My UXR partner and I compiled the findings with our UXR benchmark results.
4. Distill UXR findings into insights
My UX Research partner and I compiled the findings of our research with the stakeholder interviews and created themes and How Might We's.
5. Refine KPIs and project goals with Product
Our whole team met with our Product Managers to get clear on our goals given the research findings.
6. Sitemaps and information architecture diagrams for new Search Landing Page and section of the web portal and mobile app
Equipped with the refined new project goals, I created a few different sitemap versions and IA diagrams based on different ways to structure the Search flows,
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6. Lo-fi wireframe concept creation of new Search landing page and section
Guided by the information architecture and internal feedback, I created low-fidelity wireframes and made 2 versions of clickable prototypes for further testing.
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7. UXR testing of lo-fidelity wireframes
My UX Research partner and I created a test script and conducted an A/B test with 25 participants. We also gave the test participants a card sort test where they gave feedback on how they would expect the information to be grouped on the Search Landing Page.
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8. User Story Mapping (from Jeff Patton) with our Product Managers to determine our MVP version of the Search Landing Page, and to section off and map out subsequent releases
I've used this brilliant activity many times, and it was the perfect way to conceptualize the grand vision for the Search Landing Page with our Product Managers and to collectively determine which features would make the cut for our MVP version to launch immediately. I created a one-day workshop for this activity and guided our whole team and Product and Engineering partners through the steps.
9. High-fidelity UX wireframes and prototypes for MVP version based on test results and our User Story Mapping agreements
I teamed up with our UI designer to create a wireframe version of Aetna's UI component library to compose our pages and some clickable prototypes. Once we had the sign-off from our Product and Engineering partners, we were ready to go to final UI.
10. Final visual design by my UI Design partner and final content creation by our Content Strategist
My UI design partner took the lead on this phase, but I collaborated with him on nuanced UX interactions where needed. Aetna/CVS has an extensive Accessibility (A11y) team, and we all worked with them throughout this phase to ensure our designs were WCAG compliant.
11. Launch of MVP version of Search landing page and section
Our UI Designer and Content Strategist and I worked with our Developers as they built out our designs.
11. UXR testing of top tasks on the live MVP Search Landing Page to measure the improvements
Once the Search Landing Page was live, my UX Researcher and I did a follow-up benchmark test with 15 participants to see the impact of the new features. Each participant spent one hour
Outcomes
We saw improvements on all usability metrics for the top Search tasks. The participants in the usability test reported a much easier time locating the care they needed and liked not having to rely only on typing into the search bar to find options.
