Ambetter
Improving Experiences and Relationships
The Challenge.
Trust. That was the biggest problem at the start of this project. Working with a line of business unfamiliar with my team and lack of trust from a client who had been burned by agencies in the past meant fighting an uphill battle before the first stakeholder interview. As the UX Director, I worked as hard on building trust internally and with the client as I did wireframes, probably harder.
And trust wasn’t the only challenge. Ambetter was in need of a complete redesign to their sites before Open Enrollment 2020. A blurry relationship between the national and individual state sites left users confused and a site not built for responsive design limited their growing mobile audience. With the deadline looming, the project was broken into multiple phases, which uncovered issues with Ambetter’s content authors and internal development team. The Phase 1 implementation did not match the experience I designed and content authors struggled to build pages.
The Approach.
Research
The phased approach to this project allowed for robust research and testing. I guided my team through creating scripts for 10 stakeholder interviews and developed a multi-prong workshop strategy to quickly gather and synthesize information.
During Phase 1, I worked with the client to develop usability test scenarios and oversaw development of the prototype. The results confirmed our hypothesizes in some areas and led to improvements in others. Ultimately, what I learned from testing informed the project roadmap for Phase 2.
Developed stakeholder interview scripts for audiences representing four specific user types
Created an approach for the in-person and remote workshops that engaged participants and produced comparable results
Identified scenarios for usability testing and oversaw test plan creation for both phases of work
Synthesized usability test findings into actionable tasks on Ambetter’s roadmap
Content Strategy & Information Architecture
Discovery identified a key issue – users didn’t know where to go because there was no clear distinction between the national site and the 18 state sites. The sites needed to share a message but clearly communicate their unique purpose to users. I worked with my team to develop a unified content goal, simplify navigation, reduce redundancy and streamline user journeys.
Conducted a content audit that identified outdated content and highlighted the redundancy between the national and state sites
Created a distinct purpose for each site united by a new content mission, “Be Helpful”
Developed content guidelines with uniform language and labelling built on users’ mental models
Designed a navigation to connect potential members directly with the shopping platform
In Phase 2 introduced a Content & Component Matrix to direct content authors and ensure site consistency
User Experience & Design
Phased Improvement
Open enrollment was the north star for Phase 1 focusing on five key pages, including two landing pages. While the goal was to increase conversion, foundational elements for the eventual full redesign took shape, including responsiveness, accessibility and modernization. Looking back, I’m not sure if the phased approach was right. With such a narrow scope, the majority of the site was left untouched during Phase 1, creating an inconsistent experience.
On the plus side, the phased approach created the opportunity to fine tune and improve pages from Phase 1 as part of the overall site redesign in Phase 2. The client challenged me to go bigger in this second phase and “blow up the site” to create the ideal experience.
Test, Learn, Repeat
Learning about Ambetter’s plans is a key part of the user journey on both the national and state sites. The current state experience didn’t allow users to easily compare the three plans and details were hidden in a downloadable brochure. In Phase 1, I focused on a solution for plan comparison and added that pesky PDF to the Phase 2 roadmap.
Given the dramatic change, I was eager to see how the plans page performed in usability testing. Test subjects gave it two thumbs up for ease of comparison and overall design, but every single user expected that clicking the card would open a page with plan details (it didn’t, those were still in the PDF).
Phase 2’s more generous timeline allowed me to revisit this page and find a better solution. The new layout streamlines the experience giving users everything they need on one page (and the PDF is no more!). I’ve included scenarios in our upcoming usability test to validate if this iteration helps users access details more quickly and still easily compare plans.
A Tale of Two Landing Pages
ICF Next’s paid media team has a long-standing relationship with Ambetter and executes campaigns with a $40 million budget during open enrollment. Why is this important? Because the previously mentioned internal trust issues stemmed from 3 unknown experience designers waltzing into a highly valuable client relationship right before the paid media team’s Super Bowl.
The two landing pages were the biggest point of contention. Our client wanted to “push the envelope” and the paid media team wanted to stick to their familiar form fields and sparse content. I knew our internal teams had to align, so I included them in my design process. To further build trust, I proposed we create a “Traditional” and an “Experimental” landing page. The client loved the idea and the paid media team let out a collective sigh of relief.
So, what happened? They performed exactly the same and were part of the most successful open enrollment period to date. This proved to the client that I could deliver, and hopefully, opened the paid media team’s mind a bit. Even if that’s not the case, we now work as trusted partners.
The Results.
Investing in the Future
Despite a rocky start, Ambetter has become my favorite client and the feeling is mutual. I knew we had the potential to grow this account in big ways. I was a trusted advisors and felt it was important to really lean in and provide impeccable service, even if I couldn’t bill for all of it yet…
The Future is Bright
Recently, on an ordinary status check in, I heard the words I’ve been waiting for, “Heather, we need your help”. And not just a little one-off change order, an entire end-to-end implementation encompassing what I know they need (and have been cataloging in case this day ever came) to fully realize the experience Ambetter deserves.