BENEFITS PORTAL

Helping business owners and HR reps easily manage benefits

Handling employee benefits on top of a whole list of other job responsibilities can be overwhelming.

When I worked on the UI of the benefits portal for Independence Administrators (a Blue Branded health plan administered by AmeriHealth Administrators) I didn’t have much time for research before this product needed to get into production. However, I did have access to subject matter experts and research that had already been conducted, which directly fed into most of my design decisions.

MY ROLE

I pulled together research, mocked up some quick sketches, and created UI designs using Blue Branding assets. Originally I was tasked with only providing logos, icons, and color codes for a pre-existing wireframe, but I could see some research needed to be done before I provided the requested assets. 

WHERE I STARTED ON THIS PROJECT

Before I was pulled into this re-design, the project management team had already put together wireframes. Much of this was designed based on previous information architecture with a few features that were added.

THE RESEARCH

When I first jumped on this project, I was very concerned that I was going to have to provide an interface design without any research to back up my design decisions, since I only had a few days to provide designs to the project manager.

However, I did recall there was plenty of research already documented for the same users of similar products.

Utilized pre-existing personas

I was able to use personas created during the re-branding of our third-party administrator products.*  

*Personas developed and provided by Tierney & Partners Inc.

Created sketch during meeting with account managers

Since our account managers have the closest day to day contact with prospective users of the benefits portal, I wanted to meet with them before I sketched anything out. From our conversations I found that most of our clients logged into the portal at the time to manage their plans and make enrollment changes. I also found out that most of our clients expected there to be some way to make bill payments through the portal. 

Looked through a client survey

From the client survey, I found much of the feedback regarding their portal access revolved around bill payments, viewing balances, and information that could help promote health and wellness to their employees. 

The feedback regarding health and wellness was pretty clear to me, so I adjusted my design to make sure that access to that section was obvious and prominent in my high-fidelity design.

HIGH-FIDELITY DESIGNS

With the deadline approaching quickly, I was able to incorporate the revised information architecture supported by research in my high-fidelity design.

THE HAND-OFF

When I handed off the revised high-fidelity pages to the project management team, I explained what research I used to make my design decisions. I didn’t really get much push-back, aside from the challenge that might come with having the billing and statement balances connected into the portal. Our client billing was in another system outside of the client portal infrastructure, so the first release would likely not include the integrated billing within the portal.

I was happy to see the project management team open to modifying the original wireframe layout from the research I provided. Before I left AmeriHealth Administrators, the new benefits management portal was  scheduled to launch at the end of 2019.

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I have intentionally omitted and obfuscated confidential visuals and information in this case study. All visuals and information in this case study are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of AmeriHealth Administrators, Independence Administrators, or any Blue Cross Blue Shield entities.