State of Illinois Site Rework

Reflecting the value of our largest customer.

Duration

April - Nov 2019 (8 Months)

Role

Research, UXD, FE-D

So what is “State of Illinois?”

Our largest customer group that consists of people who work for the state of Illinois.

The Problem

Each State of Illinois employee that purchased a healthcare plan through us was directed to a primitive website that simply linked to various PDFs containing general plan info like pricing, benefits, and perks.

The Ask

The site's design was extremely basic without any kind of polish or thought put into it. It surely did not reflect the value of our largest employer group. Given that this page had the highest traffic and bounce rate on our site, it needed a major overhaul to better service this group and market our plans. See old sites here.

Research and Analysis

Learning about the user and what their needs are.

The Breakdown

I started by first collecting a compilation of user data provided by analysts and coordinators throughout the organization. I wanted to understand exactly who was lumped together into this large employer group and think through what features they needed on the site.

User Research

We broke down the user data to reflect four primary users.

Current employees from various organizations in Illinois

Retired employees of various community colleges

Retired teachers employed in Illinois

Local government health plan purchasers

Insights

By analyzing our users and competing plans, a few primary trends emerged.

Helpful Insight #1

A significant portion of this group (either for themselves or for a dependent) was enrolled in a university, community college, or local educational program. This was because the extended provider network for students was the primary marketably advantageous benefit of the program.

Aside from personalizing plan information, plan benefits, and plan perks, we needed to display the major competitive aspects of each plan.

Personas

Our two most frequent use cases

Clara

Teacher for an Illinois school with a daughter starting university in the Fall out of state. Has an employer group plan, but is looking for plan options to accommodate her child who isn't currently covered as a dependent where she is moving.

Rob

Young construction worker who is planning to enter technical school in the near future. Is looking for individual coverage for an affordable plan with flexibility.

Bringing it All Together

Designing for scalability and sustainability.

Design System

We liked the way the new site looked and felt, and the next phase was to implement the new design across the other employer group sites.

I created a rough design system, developed a SCSS library, and used it to rebuild all sites. Since I had was doing both design development, I was able to organically grow the system over time and handle rapid iterations and quick deployment. The outcome was a near, pixel perfect product achieved on both mobile and desktop endpoints.

Feedback & Iterations

I worked directly with stakeholders throughout each phase of the project to articulate design decisions and coordinate a major design overhaul. All new sites launched between April and November of 2019.

Project Learnings

Data drives product.

Project Learning #1

Data gathering can steer product decisions like which solutions work and which don't. Data can help shape the larger marketing strategy. Without it, advising stakeholders as designers can be a challenge.

A lot the process for great results comes down to articulating decisions with data that aligns with larger business goals. Being able to lead and advise others involved toward a better product often comes down to clear communication and presentable data.