Helping seniors manage their healthcare on a mobile device — a UX case study
Helping seniors manage their healthcare on a mobile device — a UX case study
Helping seniors manage their healthcare on a mobile device — a UX case study
Seniors (adults ages 65 and up) are the fastest growing segment of mobile users. According to a Pew Research study, 4 in 10 seniors now own a smartphone, doubling in number since 2013. The same research reveals 3 in 10 seniors own and use a tablet. UnitedHealthcare/AARP realized there was a tremendous opportunity to lead the market, serve their customers, and create efficiency by creating an app tailored to this group of people. The existing site was not optimized for small screens and particularly not this particular demographic.
While at UnitedHealthcare, I had the opportunity to lead the UX team that created and launched their mobile responsive benefits site. To make sure we were using patterns and conventions that these users understood, we used guerrilla testing (and iterative redesign) followed by two days of intense user testing in a lab before development and release. The results of our iterative design and testing were very insightful and, I believe, point out some opportunities specific to designing for this group of people.
Information Architecture
Most of us grew up with the internet or at least some form of computer operating system. Understanding directory structure is intuitive as we easily draw upon the mental model of files within directories and directories within other directories. Navigating several levels into and back out while always knowing where we are within a site is generally effortless.
Navigating folders in Windows 3.1
Research indicates that older users don’t typically visualize directory structure while navigating a site. Which means they are easily lost within a site. So how do we keep our visitors from getting lost within our site? We limited the site to only two levels deep, added a back button (typical in apps, but not mobile web) and a home button within our menu.
Flat information architecture
Show me how to get Back
Because web browsers have a Back button as part of the application, designers don’t typically worry about including it with their experience (unlike designing a native application). But for these users, testing revealed we couldn’t assume it would be used (as in most web browsers, it typically disappears after the user begins scrolling). Testing revealed that it was necessary to include a mechanism to go back to the previous page from within the experience. We tested a handful of icons and labels, for example, “previous” as opposed to “back.” One of our testers put it very clearly saying “Back always means back. I always know what that button does.”
Show me how to get Home
Navigating to a home screen is critical as it provides the anchor or sort of home base, that is used to re-orient these users before they navigate back within the site. Within modern web design, navigating back to home is a fairly simple task. It is intuitive for most people to click the logo, home icon, or any kind of label that approximates home such as “dashboard.” We tested various labels and icons and, no surprise, having an actual nav element within our menu named “Home” proved most effective.
Accessibility Matters
The UI is not slick and modern. We resisted the urge to design for other designers and instead focused on styles and patterns this market would feel comfortable with. And that meant paying particular attention to accessibility.
Some projects attempt to only implement some of the common sense aspects of accessibility. For a large company such as UnitedHealthcare, accessibility critical to serving their clients but is also their legal obligation to provide tools that are inclusive by meeting WCAG Level AA standards. You can learn more about the new WCAG standards here.
The entire product, both design and development was audited internally to verify we were in compliance with WCAF standards. Much has been written about accessibility in regards to UX/UI, so I won’t go into detail. For this project, the most noteworthy design items impacted by these standards include:
Typography — make sure your type size and color choice are optimized for persons with poor eyesight.
Colors–make sure your color selections are still recognizable to people with different forms of color blindness.
Iconography–limited use of iconography and always iconography accompanied by a text label.
Touch Targets–utilized best practices, industry standard 48-pixel touch target size.
The plan info was color-coded to match corresponding print materials. This market makes heavy use of printed forms and marketing, so making the connection between the print and digital worlds is key to success.
Releasing our mobile experience to the masses
Designing an app that allows seniors to easily manage their healthcare on a mobile device was not easy. However, releasing this new product was.
Typically releasing a new product involves a large coordinated effort across sales, marketing, and product to engage new users. This was nothing like that. AARP serves roughly 38 million people. On release, all mobile traffic was redirected to the new experience. As expected site usage via mobile devices went through the roof. A big surprise to the product management team was the large numbers of new members signing up via mobile. This was a delighter as there was a relatively low expectation that this market would attempt a more complex task on a smaller screen.
This new mobile experience provides a highly useable tool for this very underserved market. By creative exploration, implementing best practices, and testing with real users, we delivered a product that exceeded expectations, engages these customers and helps millions of people manage their healthcare every day.
Lessons Learned
The product we designed did not match the vision we started with. Our natural bias as designers was to design something slick, something with layers of complexity, something that would jump off the pages of our portfolios. What we learned through conversations with real users is that what worked for them was something very practical, easy to understand and simple to navigate. It met them where they were, not where we wanted to be. Because in the end, everything we design is centered on the people who use our products.
Seniors (adults ages 65 and up) are the fastest growing segment of mobile users. According to a Pew Research study, 4 in 10 seniors now own a smartphone, doubling in number since 2013. The same research reveals 3 in 10 seniors own and use a tablet. UnitedHealthcare/AARP realized there was a tremendous opportunity to lead the market, serve their customers, and create efficiency by creating an app tailored to this group of people. The existing site was not optimized for small screens and particularly not this particular demographic.
While at UnitedHealthcare, I had the opportunity to lead the UX team that created and launched their mobile responsive benefits site. To make sure we were using patterns and conventions that these users understood, we used guerrilla testing (and iterative redesign) followed by two days of intense user testing in a lab before development and release. The results of our iterative design and testing were very insightful and, I believe, point out some opportunities specific to designing for this group of people.
Information Architecture
Most of us grew up with the internet or at least some form of computer operating system. Understanding directory structure is intuitive as we easily draw upon the mental model of files within directories and directories within other directories. Navigating several levels into and back out while always knowing where we are within a site is generally effortless.
Navigating folders in Windows 3.1
Research indicates that older users don’t typically visualize directory structure while navigating a site. Which means they are easily lost within a site. So how do we keep our visitors from getting lost within our site? We limited the site to only two levels deep, added a back button (typical in apps, but not mobile web) and a home button within our menu.
Flat information architecture
Show me how to get Back
Because web browsers have a Back button as part of the application, designers don’t typically worry about including it with their experience (unlike designing a native application). But for these users, testing revealed we couldn’t assume it would be used (as in most web browsers, it typically disappears after the user begins scrolling). Testing revealed that it was necessary to include a mechanism to go back to the previous page from within the experience. We tested a handful of icons and labels, for example, “previous” as opposed to “back.” One of our testers put it very clearly saying “Back always means back. I always know what that button does.”
Show me how to get Home
Navigating to a home screen is critical as it provides the anchor or sort of home base, that is used to re-orient these users before they navigate back within the site. Within modern web design, navigating back to home is a fairly simple task. It is intuitive for most people to click the logo, home icon, or any kind of label that approximates home such as “dashboard.” We tested various labels and icons and, no surprise, having an actual nav element within our menu named “Home” proved most effective.
Accessibility Matters
The UI is not slick and modern. We resisted the urge to design for other designers and instead focused on styles and patterns this market would feel comfortable with. And that meant paying particular attention to accessibility.
Some projects attempt to only implement some of the common sense aspects of accessibility. For a large company such as UnitedHealthcare, accessibility critical to serving their clients but is also their legal obligation to provide tools that are inclusive by meeting WCAG Level AA standards. You can learn more about the new WCAG standards here.
The entire product, both design and development was audited internally to verify we were in compliance with WCAF standards. Much has been written about accessibility in regards to UX/UI, so I won’t go into detail. For this project, the most noteworthy design items impacted by these standards include:
Typography — make sure your type size and color choice are optimized for persons with poor eyesight.
Colors–make sure your color selections are still recognizable to people with different forms of color blindness.
Iconography–limited use of iconography and always iconography accompanied by a text label.
Touch Targets–utilized best practices, industry standard 48-pixel touch target size.
The plan info was color-coded to match corresponding print materials. This market makes heavy use of printed forms and marketing, so making the connection between the print and digital worlds is key to success.
Releasing our mobile experience to the masses
Designing an app that allows seniors to easily manage their healthcare on a mobile device was not easy. However, releasing this new product was.
Typically releasing a new product involves a large coordinated effort across sales, marketing, and product to engage new users. This was nothing like that. AARP serves roughly 38 million people. On release, all mobile traffic was redirected to the new experience. As expected site usage via mobile devices went through the roof. A big surprise to the product management team was the large numbers of new members signing up via mobile. This was a delighter as there was a relatively low expectation that this market would attempt a more complex task on a smaller screen.
This new mobile experience provides a highly useable tool for this very underserved market. By creative exploration, implementing best practices, and testing with real users, we delivered a product that exceeded expectations, engages these customers and helps millions of people manage their healthcare every day.
Lessons Learned
The product we designed did not match the vision we started with. Our natural bias as designers was to design something slick, something with layers of complexity, something that would jump off the pages of our portfolios. What we learned through conversations with real users is that what worked for them was something very practical, easy to understand and simple to navigate. It met them where they were, not where we wanted to be. Because in the end, everything we design is centered on the people who use our products.
Seniors (adults ages 65 and up) are the fastest growing segment of mobile users. According to a Pew Research study, 4 in 10 seniors now own a smartphone, doubling in number since 2013. The same research reveals 3 in 10 seniors own and use a tablet. UnitedHealthcare/AARP realized there was a tremendous opportunity to lead the market, serve their customers, and create efficiency by creating an app tailored to this group of people. The existing site was not optimized for small screens and particularly not this particular demographic.
While at UnitedHealthcare, I had the opportunity to lead the UX team that created and launched their mobile responsive benefits site. To make sure we were using patterns and conventions that these users understood, we used guerrilla testing (and iterative redesign) followed by two days of intense user testing in a lab before development and release. The results of our iterative design and testing were very insightful and, I believe, point out some opportunities specific to designing for this group of people.
Information Architecture
Most of us grew up with the internet or at least some form of computer operating system. Understanding directory structure is intuitive as we easily draw upon the mental model of files within directories and directories within other directories. Navigating several levels into and back out while always knowing where we are within a site is generally effortless.
Navigating folders in Windows 3.1
Research indicates that older users don’t typically visualize directory structure while navigating a site. Which means they are easily lost within a site. So how do we keep our visitors from getting lost within our site? We limited the site to only two levels deep, added a back button (typical in apps, but not mobile web) and a home button within our menu.
Flat information architecture
Show me how to get Back
Because web browsers have a Back button as part of the application, designers don’t typically worry about including it with their experience (unlike designing a native application). But for these users, testing revealed we couldn’t assume it would be used (as in most web browsers, it typically disappears after the user begins scrolling). Testing revealed that it was necessary to include a mechanism to go back to the previous page from within the experience. We tested a handful of icons and labels, for example, “previous” as opposed to “back.” One of our testers put it very clearly saying “Back always means back. I always know what that button does.”
Show me how to get Home
Navigating to a home screen is critical as it provides the anchor or sort of home base, that is used to re-orient these users before they navigate back within the site. Within modern web design, navigating back to home is a fairly simple task. It is intuitive for most people to click the logo, home icon, or any kind of label that approximates home such as “dashboard.” We tested various labels and icons and, no surprise, having an actual nav element within our menu named “Home” proved most effective.
Accessibility Matters
The UI is not slick and modern. We resisted the urge to design for other designers and instead focused on styles and patterns this market would feel comfortable with. And that meant paying particular attention to accessibility.
Some projects attempt to only implement some of the common sense aspects of accessibility. For a large company such as UnitedHealthcare, accessibility critical to serving their clients but is also their legal obligation to provide tools that are inclusive by meeting WCAG Level AA standards. You can learn more about the new WCAG standards here.
The entire product, both design and development was audited internally to verify we were in compliance with WCAF standards. Much has been written about accessibility in regards to UX/UI, so I won’t go into detail. For this project, the most noteworthy design items impacted by these standards include:
Typography — make sure your type size and color choice are optimized for persons with poor eyesight.
Colors–make sure your color selections are still recognizable to people with different forms of color blindness.
Iconography–limited use of iconography and always iconography accompanied by a text label.
Touch Targets–utilized best practices, industry standard 48-pixel touch target size.
The plan info was color-coded to match corresponding print materials. This market makes heavy use of printed forms and marketing, so making the connection between the print and digital worlds is key to success.
Releasing our mobile experience to the masses
Designing an app that allows seniors to easily manage their healthcare on a mobile device was not easy. However, releasing this new product was.
Typically releasing a new product involves a large coordinated effort across sales, marketing, and product to engage new users. This was nothing like that. AARP serves roughly 38 million people. On release, all mobile traffic was redirected to the new experience. As expected site usage via mobile devices went through the roof. A big surprise to the product management team was the large numbers of new members signing up via mobile. This was a delighter as there was a relatively low expectation that this market would attempt a more complex task on a smaller screen.
This new mobile experience provides a highly useable tool for this very underserved market. By creative exploration, implementing best practices, and testing with real users, we delivered a product that exceeded expectations, engages these customers and helps millions of people manage their healthcare every day.
Lessons Learned
The product we designed did not match the vision we started with. Our natural bias as designers was to design something slick, something with layers of complexity, something that would jump off the pages of our portfolios. What we learned through conversations with real users is that what worked for them was something very practical, easy to understand and simple to navigate. It met them where they were, not where we wanted to be. Because in the end, everything we design is centered on the people who use our products.