HEALTH BENEFIT ONLINE JOURNEY

Creating a digital route for appointees to submit a health benefit application on behalf of someone else

Quick Facts

Background

A government welfare department needed a human-centred service design approach to transform their slow, paper based application route for vulnerable citizens that require financial aid.

Skill Areas

As-is process mapping
Design Strategy
Ideation facilitation
Service Design/Transformation
To-be process mapping
Service Blueprinting
Cross functional collaboration with UCD and technical team members
Agile

Output

Current state and ideal future state service blueprints
Senior stakeholder buy-in of MVP journey
Guiding design principles
Agile epics, features, user stories and design criteria
Informing wireframes and clickable prototypes with the Interaction & Content Designer

The Details

THE PROBLEM

A government welfare department is on a transformation journey to enable the most vulnerable citizens alternative routes to applying for financial aid without solely relying on a slow, paper-based route.

Financial aid is available for citizens that have long term health conditions affecting their everyday life. For anyone that has gone through the application to receive this aid, or knows someone that has, it is a painfully slow experience with citizens relying on correspondence that only takes place via paper forms sent through the post.

The transformation programme has made strides towards enabling an online route for citizens that are applying for themselves but an important group of users haven't been designed for yet and this group are appointees. An appointee is someone/organisation appointed to look after all or some aspect of a customers affairs as they are mentally or physically incapable of doing so themselves.

Our team was tasked with designing an online journey, using a test and learn approach, so that appointees can be given the option to complete an application on behalf of someone else which cuts down application processing times and gets money to the people that need it most, faster.

HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE

6 months, 2024

MAKE OF THE TEAM

Product Manager
Delivery Manager
User Researcher
Service Designer
Content Design
Interaction Designer
Performance Analyst
Business Analysts (x2)
Tech Lead
Technical Architect
DevOps Engineer
Software Engineer
QA Engineer

KEY GOAL

Design a valuable online user journey for appointees enabling them to complete a health benefit application on behalf of someone else.

MY ROLE

I was the lead Service Designer tasked with designing a journey that would be valuable for our appointee user group while ensuring that our proposed journey caused minimal disruption operationally for the department.

This project included a full user-centred design (UCD) team and tech team. I worked closely with all team members to deliver an online user journey that would provide value to appointees from day 1.

I worked with the team's user researcher to ensure questions that captured current processes and needs for future processes were raised as it was important to understand the as-is for appointees submitting applications on behalf of someone else. I sat in on many interviews and supported with note taking so I could hear first hand some of the experiences of the user group we were designing for.

I worked closely with the product manager, delivery manger and business analysts to understand the requirements from the department so that this was captured and factored into proposed solutions.

My role in the team was crucial. As the service designer I quickly became the point of call for communicating the as-is processes, bringing all disciplines of the team together to ideate on what we'd like our journey to achieve, being a medium between UCD and tech disciplines, as it was key to know our technical constraints in a proposed journey early on, and driving screen-by-screen designs of our to-be journey, which was picked up by the content and interaction designers.

Some of the key deliverables within my role included:

High level and detailed as-is process mapping
High level and detailed to-be process mapping
Service blueprint for MVP to-be process
Team playback sessions on as-is and to-be processes
Facilitation of team ideation sessions
Walkthrough sessions with client stakeholders
Screen mockups with the content and interaction designers.

UNDERSTANDING THE USER GROUP

User research challenged the initial assumptions we had for the appointee user group. We learned that different type of appointees had different relationships with customers they were applying on behalf of and therefore had different needs.

When we received the project brief as a team we understood that there were two main types of appointees recognised by this government welfare department - personal acting bodies (PABs), that are usually friends/family, and corporate acting bodies (CABs) which are organisations that manage the finances of citizens that are unable to do so themselves. We wrongly assumed that both appointee types would have a direct relationship with the customers they are managing but research proved that this wasn't necessarily the case.

While PABs had a direct relationship with the customers they were submitting applications on behalf of, CABs didn't. CABs would usually be managing hundreds of applications across teams and would actually need to collaborate with social workers as they knew the customer better when completing applications. CABs were purely responsible for carrying out final application checks before submission and releasing funds for customers when it arrived. The difference in these type of appointees meant that they had varying needs - for example CABs required an online journey that allowed them to collaborate easily with social workers as they knew more information about customers than they did.

Most applications that were submitted by an appointee were from personal appointee (PABs) type relationships, this accounted for 98% of claims. Both PABs and CABs were extremely keen on having an online route as they spend on average over 1 hour waiting to be connected to an agent on the phone and it takes multiple weeks to receive necessary application forms via post.

As the programme wanted to deliver value quickly using a test and learn approach, they were keen for us to design a journey for PAB appointees as part of our MVP, as their relationship type was less complex and they counted for a large portion of appointee applications.

Personal appointees were friends/family of people they were supporting

Personal appointees believed that having an online journey 'should be standard in the 21st century.' As a group they collectively reiterated that the current messaging on forms they submit on behalf of their friends/family is not fit for purpose because it asks them to complete the application as if they are the customer. Many of them do not agree with this approach because they feel like they are impersonating their friend/family member.

BREAKING DOWN THE PROCESS

A test and learn approach was used to deliver screen designs quickly so feedback could be captured. We aligned with client stakeholders that a live MVP would be delivered for personal appointees first while further exploration on tech feasibility for corporate appointee relationships continued.

When the team and I were briefed on the vision for this online journey, we were made aware of the current online journey that is available for customers that want to complete a digital application for themselves. The ask we were given was to design and develop a user journey that would enable appointees to be onboarded to this online route. To kick things off it was important for us as a team to understand the lay of the land regarding the current online journey available and the process appointees have to take. Internal resources and conversations with client stakeholders provided context on the current situation while user research interviews were being organised.

Once research was ready to commence we supported the team user researcher by joining interviews, taking notes and synthesising outputs. This highlighted appointee needs and these needs were segmented into high, medium and low value/impact for appointee users. This segmentation informed which needs were vital for this journey to be valuable from day 1 and which needs could be added iteratively in following versions of the service. An example of a high impact need was for the online journey to change the application form from first person to third person for appointees. They felt like the use of first person for answering questions felt fraudulent as they are not the customer and this differentiation needs to be clear in the form.

Following research and investigation into current processes, as-is maps were documented and validated by client stakeholders. A high level view and detailed view was made available for different audiences and this was shared with the team to ensure everyone was aligned on how things were working right now.

Once the team was all aligned on current processes I planned and facilitated an ideation session that brought together business requirements, user requirements and technical feasibility. Having everyone in the room meant that ideas that were brought forward were directly being validated by requirements and what would be feasible when progressing to build.

I then used the outputs of the ideation session to inform the MVP to-be user journey for appointees. This was documented and socialised with client stakeholders to ensure there was minimal operational disruption with the proposed MVP. This was signed off by client stakeholders for us to progress with design and I worked with the product manager and delivery manager to break up design focus areas by epics.

The MVP to-be journey acted as the foundation for all design screens, interactions and content created. The detailed view provided clarity on what users would expect to see at what point and I worked closely with the team's content and interaction designers to mock up what these screens could look like. As these screens were being designed, the team's user researcher was continuously organising users that we could test designs with. The usability testing session provided specific insights on what needed to be changed in the journey giving us the ability to make changes quickly.

Once the end to end journey was designed, walkthroughs with client stakeholders and the rest of the programme took place. All design decisions were documented along with justifications on why certain things were prioritised for MVP or moved to post MVP.

UNDERSTANDING THE AS-IS PROCESSES

USING MURAL FOR IDEATION AND SCREEN MOCK UPS

DETAILED VIEW OF THE MVP TO-BE

SOME OF THE KEY POINTS THAT LED TO THIS PROJECT'S SUCCESS:

A really strong UCD team

This project brought together a full UCD team. This allowed focus in each discipline and brought together various perspectives that were valuable in making sure the user journey captures different happy and unhappy paths.

A team committed to delivering impact

This project helps some of the most vulnerable citizens in the country. The team and I were all very passionate about advocating for them and their needs.

Socialising work progress with stakeholders

As a team we were very open about sharing our progress with stakeholders and connecting with SMEs to ensure processes were fully understood. We brought them in on the design journey and captured their feedback in design decisions.

Intentional collaboration

We were a team that loved collaboration and this was key in this project's success. We carried out a lot of in-person sessions where possible and were open with challenging ideas.

Regular touch points with team and stakeholders

Touch points were needed to keep the team and stakeholders aligned on what was being delivering and why. These touch points were also crucial for communicating dependencies that we could foresee ahead of build so these could be addressed early on.

TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK

LESSONS LEARNED

As the lead Service designer on this project, I continuously worked with all team members to verify that we were all working towards the same goal and we were aligned on the expected user journey. Bringing all disciplines together provided a number of key learnings.

Creating a journey that is truly user centred is crucial - In this project we carried out regular user testing of designs and created robust feedback loops to validate assumptions. This kept us accountable as a team on making sure our user journey aligned with real customer needs and not needs that we 'thought' would be useful.
Clear communication and stakeholder alignment cannot be understated - To design a valuable user journey for appointees, cross-functional collaboration was vital. This meant that communication needed to be clear and tailored regularly to different audiences to ensure goals are aligned and conflicting priorities are avoided.
Being adaptable with iterative designs will keep solutions user-focused - Adopting a 'fail fast' approach is ideal when designing online journeys. Initial designs will most likely require adjustments as new insights emerge so being open and ready for this is important.
Document everything for future learnings - Documenting insights, decisions and designs ensures continuity, particularly for handoffs and future iterations. In the middle of our project, our technical team members were given direction by the client to focus on another brief and therefore would have to pick up build of this appointee journey further down the line. Documenting everything will help team members understand the rationale behind decision choices when it is time for build.

FEEDBACK FROM TEAM MEMBERS THAT WORKED WITH ME

Tomos Roblin, Product Manager

Lucia has been exceptional as a service designer on our project. Her thought out to-be displayed to the team what we were building, it's value and highlighted areas of uncertainty more specifically.

Yovani Lander, User Researcher

Lucia's impeccable work on the to-be design for MVP has brought clarity to our UCD team and has reassured the client of our proposed solution. Lucia is self driven and an incredibly creative service designer.

Hayleigh Sidhu, Content Designer

Ever calm and collected, Lucia created and iterated the service map through uncertain and changing priorities. There has been clear feedback praising Lucia's service map across the team and more importantly by key programme stakeholders.

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