healthcare
Company
Role
Sr. UX/UI Designer
medium
Responsive Web
timeline
2019
Overview
UnitedHealthcare’s Small Business division continuously improves its online platform, but a significant initiative during my time focused on better understanding the needs of Small Business Owners (SBOs). This included in-depth user research and addressing friction points in the enrollment funnel. With a limited development budget, our team sought to propose solutions that balanced short-term improvements and long-term roadmap planning.
Challenge
UnitedHealthcare wanted to increase conversions by 14% in the small business health insurance enrollment process. The main hurdle was a disconnect between the digital funnel and the final step involving brokers, leading to user confusion and drop-offs.
We needed to:
Create a smoother, more intuitive funnel experience.
Improve account and profile page functionality to keep users engaged.
Leverage user insights to guide incremental updates within a constrained budget.
Users
The primary users were small business owners (SBOs) with 3-15+ employees across various industries. Their technical comfort levels varied significantly, from tech-savvy individuals accustomed to online tools to those preferring more traditional methods like working directly with brokers.
While 80%+ of SBOs accessed UHC's Small Business site on desktops, a growing segment used mobile devices, reflecting broader trends in digital behavior. Many SBOs faced challenges understanding how to navigate the process independently, leading to frequent drop-offs during the broker handoff stage.
SBOs often needed a clear understanding of healthcare options for their unique business needs, balancing affordability with coverage quality. This required an intuitive experience that catered to both experienced digital users and those less familiar with online platforms.
Role
As part of a team of three designers, a product manager, and a director, I played a key role in both research and design execution:
Conducted user interviews in Salt Lake City while collaborating with teammates conducting research in Los Angeles.
Contributed to journey mapping workshops to identify pain points and opportunities.
Designed UX flows and created UI elements for the revised funnel experience.
Partnered with in-house developers to ensure smooth handoff and alignment with budget and technical constraints.
Supported our director in presenting findings and recommendations to UHC stakeholders.
Site Audit
The agency I worked with, Hoverstate, had been collaborating with various areas of United Healthcare for quite some time before I joined. The team I was assigned to had been instrumental in designing and developing the current user experience. They had made numerous prior changes and had worked on experiments before this project. Consequently, we had a good understanding of how the site performed and its history prior to this project.
Competitor
Research
In our team meetings, we reviewed several competitor websites to understand how they guide their users through the insurance process. We looked at direct competitors like Anthem Blue Cross, as well as newer entrants like Oscar Health. Additionally, we explored popular e-commerce sites for inspiration, since the UHC team often compared the insurance process to online shopping. This broader perspective allowed us to consider best practices from outside the healthcare industry.
User
Research
With the recruiting help of our product manager, we conducted user research by interviewing two sets of Small Business Owners (SBOs) from UHC’s Los Angeles and Salt Lake City offices. This provided valuable insights into the needs of SBOs in different locations. One designer led the interviews in Los Angeles, I conducted the interviews in Salt Lake City, and a third designer focused on journey mapping across both locations. The interviews spanned several weeks in Los Angeles and two days in Salt Lake City, followed by a day of journey mapping with SBOs at each site.
Kicking Off
After aligning as a team on the project plan, our product manager took charge of scheduling and coordinating the user research sessions. We were fortunate that both our Los Angeles and Salt Lake City offices were located in buildings with companies that fit our target personas, making recruiting participants more convenient. My fellow designers and I worked together to develop and refine the interview scripts, ensuring consistency across both locations. This helped maintain a smooth process, even though different designers conducted interviews at each site.
First Steps
Our user research was centered around a long-term goal: to gather key insights that would help improve the performance of the Small Business site. By conducting these interviews and journey mappings, we aimed to show the UHC team the value of user interviews and the critical role research plays in refining the customer experience.
UHC was looking to increase the traffic through the funnel by 14%. Since our research started in Q2 of 2019, the goal of implementing several solutions from tests we proposed from findings in our research went into full swing end of May 2019.
The user interviews were structured into two parts: the first focused on understanding the participants' past experiences shopping for insurance, including their pain points, successes, previous carriers, and current business needs. In the second part, participants were asked to use the current UHC Small Business website to go through the process of buying insurance for their business.
We recorded both on-screen interactions and video to capture users’ responses and the way they navigated the site. During journey mapping sessions, we documented audio and took photos to capture the participants’ experience throughout the process.
Post Research
After reviewing the data collected from our user research, we identified key patterns and themes that guided our focus toward three primary areas for improvement:
Returning visitors
Profile page
Homepage data gathering
For returning visitors, we implemented several strategies to improve user confidence and retention. One key solution was the introduction of "Saved Progress" messaging on the Medical Plans and Contribution pages. This messaging reassured users that their progress was being saved as they moved through the funnel. We designed two sets of messaging: one for users who were signed in and had an account, and another for users without an account. For those without an account, we emphasized the benefits of creating one, encouraging them to save their progress and explaining why having an account would enhance their experience.
Profile Page
The second area of focus was the profile page. Previously, the page only displayed previous or in-progress quotes without indicating the next steps needed to complete the process. We expanded the page to include clear next steps, allowing users to easily see where they stood in the process. Additionally, we streamlined the language across the quote and profile pages to make them more user-friendly. We also added functionality for document downloads, enabling users to access necessary paperwork directly from the site rather than relying on their broker. This eliminated the hassle of searching for email attachments, providing users with all the information they needed in one place.
Homepage
Data Gathering
Our final focus area was homepage data gathering, which took shape in two parts. Previously, the site only required users to input their zip code and the number of employees to enter the funnel. We added an email address field with messaging that encouraged users to enter their email to save progress. This feature not only supported the returning visitor strategy but also allowed us to reconnect with users later to track their quote progress. Additionally, we encouraged users to create an account earlier in the process. This approach aligned with common practices seen on other insurance sites and helped us gather more valuable data, such as the user’s name, phone number, and business details. Some users had expressed a preference for creating an account earlier in the process during our user research, so we tested this approach by asking for account creation after selecting medical plans, rather than right before the final quote step.
Client Approval
& Outcomes
In June 2019, we presented several improvement options to the UHC team. This provided us with enough time to secure their approval and begin working with the development team. During the design process, we collaborated closely with developers to ensure that our proposed solutions were feasible and aligned with the client's budget. Having all designs prepared for handoff made the implementation process more seamless.
After receiving final approval from the UHC team, we moved forward with the build. All the improvements were implemented ahead of the 2019 Open Enrollment period (November), providing the best opportunity to test our changes with the highest traffic. By January 2020, while the final results had yet to fully materialize, early data indicated that more users were progressing further through the funnel, nearing our target of a 14% increase in conversion—with an initial result showing a 9% increase. This early success allowed us to continue refining the user experience based on ongoing data and report back to UHC.
Looking Back
While I’m pleased with the improvements we made, I believe there was potential for even greater impact. However, as with any project within an agency setting, we were constrained by the client's budget. Many of the ideas we explored during user research required long-term investment, which in hindsight could have further optimized the user experience. Some of these ideas included features like an easy upload for employee details that could auto-populate into quotes (which would have been backend-heavy), a personalized "welcome back" screen to help users pick up where they left off (using cookies), and a wizard-style experience to guide employers through the plan selection process. While the client was excited about these ideas, they were unfortunately too development-intensive and out of scope for the project timeline and budget.
Though the implemented changes are positive, I believe the impact won’t be as significant as we initially hoped. Time will tell, but there are still ongoing tests on the UHC Small Business platform that could help push the conversion rates further. Most of these tests are run in an A/B format, so it's easy to compare the control and test results with real users. For future projects, I would appreciate having more involvement in the early stages of product planning, especially when it comes to mapping out various directions and solutions. This would help ensure we’re considering all options from the beginning.
Other Projects
In addition to the primary improvements, I was involved in several smaller updates for UHC, including animating informational interstitials to educate users throughout the funnel. Other projects included updates to the contribution page—such as adding the option to include spouses and dependents—and refining visual filtering options across various pages to make navigation more intuitive.
