Product Design

Aetna Medicare Shop, Buy & Enroll

Back to all projects
Let’s talk now!
Aetna Medicare Shop, Buy & Enroll

Project Details

Aetna Medicare represents a significant revenue stream for Aetna; however, the current user experience is outdated and confusing. This presented a substantial opportunity to completely overhaul the shopping, purchasing, and enrolment aspects of the consumer journey. The objective was to enhance the educational resources available to site visitors, effectively capture potential leads, and foster trust and confidence in Aetna as the premier choice for understanding and selecting their Medicare coverage. The team was tasked with reimagining the shopping and enrolment experience for both Aetna Medicare prospects and members, aiming to provide a streamlined, frictionless, and inclusive experience, reducing decision fatigue while achieving critical conversion and retention objectives.  

As part of a newly formed train, I led a scrum team composed of UI and UX Designers and Researchers. This team provided support to four additional scrum teams, each dedicated to a specific aspect of the user journey.

November, 2021

My role
Creative Director, Design Lead, 
Product Owner
Tools Used
Sketch, Invision

Project Goals

  • Reduce D2C abandonment rates, improving conversions and sales results
  • Provide a cohesive experience across multiple channels
  • Create and deploy a scalable, stable and unified design system at an enterprise level
  • Leverage a shared visual language, code base and customer voice for every consumer-facing digital experience

Medicare members & prospects

Using our identified Medicare personas we conducted research to understand prospects & members feelings towards buying a plan on their own.  The common themes and challenges to overcome were that they felt overwhelmed, fearful and unsure when trying to navigate their plan options which led to a lack of trust and confidence in the process.

Aetna Medicare Personas

Understanding their feelings towards buying a plan

While they want control over what plan they choose, based on what they need and find important; they are looking for help along the way. They don’t know everything they should know about Medicare, so they are looking for that information as they explore their options.
What help were they needing & looking for?
  • Which plan would cover their needs in the best way
  • Will their doctor be in-network and if not, should they leave
  • Will their drugs be covered, and if they are covered, how much
  • If they have expensive drugs, why do they cost so much and how can they save money
  • Understanding the insurance terms & Medicare terms
  • Getting more detail about various coverage details
  • Choosing the right plan with so many options
  • Consistent navigation that matched their expectations around where to start, how to go back and how to edit

UX-led research

UX research was integrated into our sprint cadence, making it a continuous part of the Shop, Buy & Enroll evolution. The team used Usertesting.com and UserZoom to carry out moderated and unmoderated tests, card sorting, and surveys with targeted prototypes. These activities informed and validated the teams ongoing design iterations.

UX Research

Re-envisioning the DTC prospect journey

Based on feedback and insights from research sessions regarding the current experience and its pain points, we reimagined four key moments in the shop, buy, and enroll journey. This redesign aimed to enhance clarity and confidence for users while providing them with various navigation options to improve their overall experience.

SBE Journey Map

Welcome

Know where to start, what your options are and what steps to take next

Shop

Easily asses potential costs, compare plans and shortlist plan options that meet your goals and budget

Buy

Feel confident in selecting the right plan for you

Enroll

Make it easy to submit the required info and provide clear orientation on what happens next

Incorporating design objectives & working principals

SBE simplify icon
SBE Simplify example

Simplify

Make the shopping experience feel easier & more intuitive. Minimize friction & decision fatigue

SBE clarity icon
SBE clarity example

Clarify

Alleviate users’ skepticism and mistrust with plain language and persistent, easy to access explanations of confusing terms

SBE guide icon
SBE Guide Example

Guide

Help users on their path by providing clear wayfinding and intuitive navigation - and remember them on return visits

Additional design challenges to overcome

Ownable brand presence

Leveraging a platform for it’s out-of-the-box capabilities  lead to unfortunate parity with our competitors. This was something that we focused on addressing in the new site experience.

Old Shop Buy & Enroll landing pageCompetitor Shopping landing page

Unified digital ecosystem

With silo’d initiatives across the organization and different design systems and libraries it was a challenge to bridge the gap given that our experience lived between the public marketing site and the authenticated member site.

AetnaMedicare.com public siteShop Buy & EnrollAetna Health Member Site

Front Door / Public Marketing Site

Shop, Buy & Enroll

Aetna Health Member Site

The new & improved Shop, Buy & Enroll experience

View the design prorotype
Let’s talk now!
Back to all projects
Let’s talk now!
Back to top