Building a Medicare learning center
For most people, switching to Medicare once they are eligible is a confusing and complicated process. Having already proven itself in the financial management space, Fidelity set out to become a trusted resource for new clients to learn the ins and outs of Medicare, and ultimately select the right options for them and their families. Our team created a digital learning center that involved extensive user testing, competitor research, and collaborative ideation processes to ultimately get to the finished product that is now serving Fidelity customers today.
My Role
UI/UX Design and Prototyping
Tools
Figma
The problem
Medicare is comprised of myriad options and choices for different people and unique scenarios. Each choice along the decision path might significantly affect an enrollee’s costs and ability to access the appropriate benefits. While there are many digital resources out there for enrollees, they don’t always provide a clear, concise, or accessible way of understanding the program’s full offerings. So, many people enrolling in Medicare for the first time or switching between Medicare plans have a difficult time getting to the choice that would ultimately be best for them. From past customer insights, we know that when people become eligible for Medicare, they are hit with an absolute deluge of marketing that overwhelms them physically and emotionally, adding more chaos to an already difficult choice. Additionally, Fidelity’s new Medicare offering was/is still relatively new and unknown. In order to grow and scale the business, it would be crucial for Fidelity Medicare Services to establish itself as a trusted source and thought leader in the Medicare space.
I identified many different comparable tools and teased out their various approaches to design and information architecture. The official Medicare.gov website, other private Medicare broker sites, and insurance carriers all addressed the issue from their own perspectives—none of which seemed to effectively center the user or consider the diversity of ways those users might prefer to engage with complex information. A full understanding of the visual and functional nuances of the existing sites set the foundation for my team’s development of Fidelity’s solution.
Personas
As we began to formulate early design ideas for how our tool would function, I revisited our team’s client personas to ensure their needs would be met. Each of these users came with their own set of goals, challenges, and considerations that we thought might affect which information they would be most interested in and how they would interact with it. I consulted these personas regularly in designing each iteration and they provided the starting basis for our evaluation of future live user testing.
Competitive review
Many of the existing Medicare information resources are difficult to navigate and don’t always effectively prioritize the most important information to a user. In order to build a better tool, we needed to understand what was and wasn’t working on the other sites, and for the people they served. I conducted a competitive review of the tools available then visually laid out the differences to guide discussion and iteration within the team.
Using the sketches and wireframes I created, the team determined that we should bring two different prototypes into user testing. One would be based on the persona approach, where a user would first make a selection about what their current Medicare situation is, that would then guide the rest of their experience in a way that was tailored to that persona type. The second prototype would be an “all resources” view that laid out all the categories of information up front, with users simply scrolling through and selecting the option they were most interested in from among all the choices.
I designed and created each of the prototypes, collaborating with the design researcher on our team. I integrated what we had learned by that point from the competitive review, the persona development, and the categories of complex program information our team had simplified into distinct articles and pages.
Prototyping & testing
Working closely with the research team, we tested the prototypes with dozens of potential users representing many different perspectives and Medicare situations. I helped plan and attended these user testing sessions, making notes and discussing user feedback with the team to further iterate on the tools. Ultimately, the results were clear enough for us to be able to set a singular path forward—the Learning Center would have to be an “all resources” experience, leaving our beloved personas behind in response to resounding user input.
Sketches, ideation, and wireframes
Keeping the personas in mind, I created sketches and wireframes for their individual journeys through the information. Someone enrolling in Medicare for the first time (“The New Enrollee”) would be directed to starting pages on program basics and an overview of the different types of coverage, whereas someone looking to change their coverage during an annual enrollment period (“The Switcher”) would start with more specific information comparing the different plan options.
Results
Users preferred to view all the resources on the first page, rather than being guided through subsequent pages by the preselected paths according to their personas.
1
Users liked the quick, high-level breakdown of all the topics in one place, with the ability to preview what each section contained. It was easier for users to scroll and skim the information instead of having to click all the way in to each article.
2
Users feared missing out on a resource that might have been relevant to them by clicking down the “wrong” path.
3
The FMS Learning Center
The result of all of that collaboration, testing, and iteration became the Fidelity Medicare Services Learning Center—a simple, accessible digital tool to understand the Medicare program and help clients choose the options that are right for them. Staying within the Fidelity brand’s visual framework and utilizing Fidelity’s enterprise design system, I created a homepage as well as separate page designs for additional resources and articles. All of the Medicare program’s complex plan information could now be understood in bite-sized increments and processed via logical categories in an engaging digital environment.
Every piece of the tool of course had to function just as elegantly in a mobile environment. I designed the mobile experiences to reflect the same logic, transparency, and navigability of the desktop browser version, integrating the feedback from our user testing process that many of our potential clients would be most likely be visiting the site using a mobile device.
Content filter mapping & testing
Referencing the different kinds of information in each article, I collaborated with our Content Strategist to create filter options for the Learning Center that would group articles for a user if they selected from a menu of different topics. We did additional user testing to determine which filter criteria would be most useful. Participants were given article examples and asked to assign it to an appropriate filter. We also asked them to suggest topics that might be relevant to each group. Using what we learned through that process, we were able to create appropriately curated groups of articles for users to more quickly see multiple points of information they may have otherwise had to spend time searching for, or not even known to search for at all.
Article template
Consistent with the larger architecture of the Learning Center, I also designed a template for current and future articles. Again, each template and page was also customized to function seamlessly in a mobile environment as well.
Before we conceptualized the Learning Center, I had created some other tools and visualizations of Medicare plan information using slideshows and simple graphics. With a few updates, these slotted in gracefully to add even more substance to the suite of resources.
One of our most helpful existing visualizations was a comparison chart between Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement plans. So, again, a previous visual I had built now had a new home where users could more easily find and utilize it.
Next steps
The Learning Center is now a living, breathing tool serving users every day in the real world. It was created through a methodical and data-driven design process by our Fidelity Medicare Services team, which I was proud to be able to contribute to. The larger Fidelity business includes it among its growing suite of tools to meet the needs of clients and cultivate loyalty, credibility, and trust that Fidelity can be a thought leader beyond financial services.