Re-designing the member eligibility team's app to beat busy season and tool deprecation, without user disruption
Note: To maintain confidentiality, mockups/images are blurred. Some details are generic for the same reason.
💼 Company
CVS Health
🤔 Business Context
The member eligibility team was about to lose all their data due to deprecated tools, which could lead to negative member impact + financial penalties. They also needed it up and running before busy season with minimal user disruption.
👤 Role & Team
I led discovery, research, and design + worked with another designer, 1 PM, 1 SME, and 6 ENG
🕰️ Timeline
~3 months
Led product discovery over ~2 weeks to understand the problem space and user workflows
I led most research and framing activities: discovery planning, user interviews, contextual inquiry, service blueprinting, and persona creation
Helped the PM navigate discovery and framing for the first time
Paired with and mentored a new designer to the team
There were ~50 Eligibility Consultants (ECs)
Key problems:
Users’ mental model weren’t reflected in the application. They work on a client plan over time in projects but info is displayed cumulatively
~30sec+ to open a page. This adds up during busy season.
Additional tracking tools made it difficult to focus on the actual work.
Keeping track of all the things to do was difficult for users
Basic usability
"How would you describe this role?"
"Tedious"
I led framing activities with PM and stakeholders to align on the app's direction
Problem prioritization and defining success
Design Studio with users
Defined the app's conceptual flow
🎯 The stakeholders gave us access to all the Eligibility Consultants
I emphasized the importance of user testing at various fidelity levels to minimize risk and reduce adoption resistance with this new tool.
Stakeholders were impressed with our quickly acquired knowledge of the operational workflows.
Key use cases
Gather requirements on a client call
Work on the EPR page and complete the checklist
Research an issue on a requirement
Review the testing results
Update the project tracker
A/B concept testing 2 different layouts to support the different use cases
I used the existing application UI to preserve familiarity with users during concept testing
I tested this with 4 users of various experience levels, and worked with the SME to define realistic use cases
Original Layout
Keeping the same layout would work for users due to familiarity
Modified Layout
Having the tracker/checklist next to requirements is useful in various scenarios
Results
3/4 users preferred the Modified Layout because it supported multiple use cases and easily find information without needing to switch tabs
1 user would have preferred the Modified Layout if the sidebar could be collapsed
The new application
Continuously involved users as we built out different parts of the app
Used our internal design system for cohesiveness
Worked with engineers to help us understand technical feasibility of design ideas, and sequencing of work
The main workflow page (EPR page)
Users can see key client, project and checklist information while working on their current project.
Testing page
Users verify test results inputted by a secondary user of the application.
Key value-add features
Efficient layout and content organization for multiple use cases
Users have section anchor link navigation to get to the right place in the form quickly
Users can search for other documents
Improved usability for daily usage
🪢 Constraints
⛓️💥 Workarounds
No analytics on the existing application
Learned about existing usage qualitatively
Wasn’t able to observe the client call scenario
Learned about it via user interviews
Urgent nature of the project
Optimize instead of re-imagine
✅ Results
80%
Faster loading time
Data preservation
Engineers did this of course
On-time launch
Completed design/build on time
💚 Sometimes, heartfelt gratitude is the best measure of success
“We all love it!!! I have received a lot of praise over the last few days … It is amazing! You all did a great job!!! I hope your new [product] team knows how fortunate they are to have you!!!”
— SME and Trainer of the Eligibility Consultants
💡 Key Takeaways
Demonstrating domain knowledge to stakeholders helped build trust
Focusing on optimization and problem solving vs re-imagining worked for this type of project