HEALTH BENEFIT ONLINE JOURNEY
Creating a digital route for appointees to submit a health benefit application on behalf of someone else
Quick Facts
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Background
85% of people applying for a government health benefit with an appointee (someone applying on behalf of someone else) were successful in the last 12 months and yet, this vulnerable group of citizens had to rely on a slow paper based application route. An alternative route was needed to get decisions to this user group faster.
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Skill Areas
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As-is process mapping
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Design Strategy
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Ideation facilitation
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To-be process mapping
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Service Blueprinting
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Cross functional collaboration with UCD and technical team members
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Agile
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My Deliverables
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Current state process maps and ideal future state service blueprints
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Senior stakeholder buy-in of MVP journey
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Guiding design principles
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Agile epics, features, user stories and design criteria
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Informing wireframes and clickable prototypes with the Interaction & Content Designer
The Details
THE CHALLENGE
Financial aid is available for citizens that have long term health conditions affecting their everyday life. For someone applying on behalf of someone else (an appointee), it can take 4 months to get a decision on an application due to a slow paper based route.
Appointees are applying on behalf of some of the most vulnerable citizens in the UK as they are mentally or physically incapable of doing so themselves. Some appointees are supporting more than 1 person so a quicker, alternative route is needed to cut down application processing times and get money to the people that need it most, faster.
CLIENT
Government Welfare Department
YEAR
2024 - 5 (6 months)
INDUSTRY
Public Sector
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 Service Designer for the delivery team in charge of designing a journey that would be valuable for this appointee user group while ensuring the operational impact of this proposed journey was planned for to achieve a seamless MVP release.
Some of the key deliverables within my role included:
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High level and detailed as-is process mapping
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High level and detailed to-be process mapping
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Service blueprint for MVP to-be process
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Team playback sessions on as-is and to-be processes
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Facilitation of team ideation sessions
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Walkthrough sessions with client stakeholders
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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.
There are 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 had a direct relationship with the customers they were 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 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.
98% of appointee applications were from personal appointee (PABs) type relationships. While both PABs and CABs were extremely keen on having an online route, we decided to design for PABs initially so we could deliver value to a higher number of users.
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 as 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 an MVP would be delivered for personal appointees first while further exploration on tech feasibility for corporate appointee relationships continued.
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Supported user research to uncover pain points and prioritised user requirements. How might we statements were created based on frequent themes - e.g. 'How might we enable appointees to complete forms confidently, using language that reflects their supportive role rather than assuming another's identity?
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Interrogated internal resources and leveraged SME knowledge to understand the problem from a business perspective - applications with an appointee are 12% longer (in days) which costs the department more money.
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Outlined the As-Is journey (high level and detailed) and played this back to a multi-disciplinary team. Tailored walkthroughs so it could be easily digested in sessions.
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Facilitated ideation sessions bringing together user requirements, business requirements and technical feasibility.
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Synthesised session outputs to inform the MVP To-be user journey for PAB appointees. Socialised this proposed journey with client stakeholders to highlight operational impacts and ensure everyone was aligned.
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Worked closely with the product manager and delivery manager to break up delivery design and build by epics and user stories.
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Worked closely with the content and interaction designer to ensure prototyped screen design aligned with the to-be user journey.
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Supported usability testing of screen interaction and content comprehension for PAB appointees.
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Ran an impact assessment following testing insights to document the features necessary for MVP and the prioritised list of features needed post MVP.
High Level as-is journey for New Appointees
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
THE IMPACT
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Designed a complete service blueprint enabling this user group make an application online for the first time.
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Detailed the technical build activities (stories) required to deliver the MVP journey for PAB appointees.
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Informed the programme strategy and delivery priorities because the to-be map highlighted gaps in technical architecture that needed to be tackled to reduce design and technical debt.
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, UCD Lead
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.