Anthem
Scope
Online Shopping Platform
role
Associate Experience Design Director
How do you make an enjoyable shopping experience in a category that everyone hates?
the problem
With the passing of the Affordable Healthcare Act, and the rise of self-employment, more people are signing up for individual insurance. But the shopping process is still designed for employers and brokers who are industry experts. Anthem asked us to create a shopping experience that broke the mold of health insurance sites, and helped shoppers find a plan that was right for them.
The Strategy
Shopping for insurance can be confusing, so we wanted to make it as simple as possible. The experience starts with brand-agnostic education to get everyone off on the right foot. Once users start shopping, we ask one question at a time, and personalize things as we go so that they only see what they need to.
create informed shoppers
Many shoppers don’t know the difference between a PPO and HMO, or Deductible and Premium (don't worry, we didn’t either). We wanted to take the time to explain these differences upfront in an interactive and lightweight way so that shoppers could make educated decisions once they started the shopping process.
one question at a time
Shopping for health insurance can be stressful. To make the process as simple as possible we created a stepped process that focuses the user on a single question. Their answers dynamically adjusted the following questions, so we only ask what we need to.
personalize results
When doing consumer research, we found that many shoppers became overwhelmed when presented with a large number of plan options. So we decided to gather preference information up front so that we could show streamlined and personalized results that were easy to scan and shop.
Roles
As an Experience Designer, I think it's important to be involved in a project from initial concept all the way to launch. Here are the work flows that I was involved in on the Anthem project.
creative direction
Oversaw team of 5 to provided experience and design direction, focusing on simplicity and personalization.
consumer research
Spoke with recent insurance-shoppers to learn about their pain points and desires.
content strategy
Based on consumer research, created educational content using plain language rather than industry jargon.
ux design
Design was simple and straightforward, gathering preferences step by step to personalize results.
user testing
Designs were tested by new and returning shoppers. Feedback lead to edits in flow and designs.
quality assurance
Worked with development team to test build and identify bugs across different screen sizes and browsers.
The Flow
1. Educate
2. preferences
3. results
4. apply
5. complete
prefernces
plan results
Plan details
