The goal for this project was not only to help Sound transition into the B2C market by creating a new responsive e-commerce website, but also to gain and establish trust with its users by designing a transparent onboarding process that would educate users, allow them to search for personalized options, and ultimately allow them to sign up for their desired policies.
The first step of the research process was understanding the existing landscape and problem space. While Sound already had a set expectation of what needed to be designed, researching the market and user trends allowed me to uncover key information about millennial habits and sentiments when purchasing insurance that guided the way I ultimately framed the experience.
These key insights included:
The second part of the research process was conducting interviews with users to understand their needs and frustrations when selecting their health insurance. I recruited participants who ranged from “never purchased health insurance before” to “have purchased their own health insurance” in order to uncover user sentiment about the health insurance selection process.
My findings revealed the following crucial findings:
User research perspectives then guided and informed persona development.
From the research, I centered the user journeys and user stories throughout the design process on two individuals, Olivia and Thomas. My objective was to ensure that their challenges and goals were intentionally addressed from user research, which helped to focus the forthcoming design.
Based on the key discoveries found during the research stage, I started constructing a user experience flow using paper sketches and digital wireframes to flesh out the navigation, quote flow, and customized policy selection experiences.
After coming up with the wireframes, I then prioritized human-centered design at every step by using inclusive illustrations, accessible color contrast, user-friendly visual elements, clear copy, and a simple and streamlined quote process.
After analyzing the branding of existing players in the health insurance industry, I designed UI elements that represented the image that Sound wanted to portray to its users, beginning with a suitable logo and color palette. The final UI kit serves as a framework to tie together logo, style, and visual assets for the Sound website.
I conducted usability testing both remotely over Zoom and in-person with participants varying in levels of health insurance experience to test the ease of navigation, identify bottlenecks, and observe the different paths users took to complete the quote flow.
1. Users wanted to check out the site more before beginning to obtain a quote
2. Users enjoyed the concise and playful verbiage throughout the main pages, and wanted that theme to continue throughout the onboarding process
3. Users wanted a way to save their quote or to be able to return to their quote at a later time
Based on these findings, I then prioritized the following revisions:
1. Created more ways and promptings to enter the quote wizard, so that users wouldn’t have to scroll back to the top of the home page to obtain their quote
2. Updated the onboarding copy to reflect a more playful tone
3. Added the option to enter contact information for users who want to return to their quote
Feel free to play around with this interactive prototype lovingly designed and prototyped in Figma showcasing Sound's browser experience in tablet view, and complete the onboarding process for Sound Health.
As a User Experience Designer, my priority should be the user, but what if the company has other marketing/sales objectives in mind? For example, a health insurance company might try to push their most expensive plans on vulnerable, uninformed customers because that might be their success metric, but ultimately, I believe that an informed customer is a loyal, life-long customer, and that pays dividends in the long-run.
I found that usability testing participants had different user flows, some were more exploratory and hesitant, needing more time and information to enter the quote process, and others were more decisive and wanted a frictionless experience.