At our first World Usability Day Detroit event, Jeff Greer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan (BCBSM) and Steve Tengler of Altia, Inc. spoke on the topic of collaborating for better systems in healthcare.
Thank you to food and prize sponsor Vitamin T for their support of Detroit User Experience and to Grand Circus for hosting the event. Shoutout to Eric Malcolm for taking notes during the presentations.
Connecting the Dots Using Content Strategy: Making Health Insurance Easy
In his presentation, Jeff Greer discussed the role content strategy played in the recent redesign of the BCBSM website. Jeff explained the challenges BCBSM faced, the process taken, results, and plans for the future.
Challenges
- Lack of organization, over 3,600 pages and no hierarchy of information
- Out of date content (over 750 pages) and design
- Outdated governance model
- High costs, unhappy customers
Content Strategy Process
- Customer focused. Front facing portion of the site should be focused on members and people shopping for new health care solutions
- Developed user personas after identifying 11 different consumer segments that covered 90% of their audience. Selected three personas to focus on.
- Created web content team with three existing team members, eventually hired five more team members
- Created journey maps and user flows. Conducted content audit and analysis.
- Followed a “clear and simple” initiative. Content was written for a fifth-grade reading level.
- Simplified navigation
- Site was optimized for internal and external search
- Provided easy-to-understand, consistent information that was aligned across all touchpoints
Results
- Site was delivered on time, on strategy, and on budget
- Increased customer satisfaction, SEO rankings and natural search traffic
- Fewer pages on site, but visits have increased
What’s Next for the BCBSM Website
- Mobile website experience, a couple applications in the future
- Focus on internal processes
- Add video
How To Infuse Your Medical User Interface With Pure Sweetness
Steve Tengler discussed the five steps towards creating a great user experience in a market-driven product, highlighting the success of a touchscreen insulin pump. If you’d like, download Steve’s presentation (PDF).
Why Graphical User Interfaces
- The user interface is the product
- A great user experience + market leadership
- User interfaces redesign your brand and your company
Tandem Diabetes Care® Insulin Pump
- Challenge: create a product that’s good-looking, interactive, affordable
- Make it easy to use, previous insulin pumps are bulky and controls are difficult to navigate
Five Keys to Success
- Key 1: Be uncompromising at the product level
- User-centered design balanced with marketing needs
- Medical GUI represents the Wild West with “Attempts” at pioneering (GE, J&J, etc. starting to innovate)
- How is your GUI going to redefine the product and UX?
- Key 2: Essential Expertise for User-Centered Team
- Industrial design, human factors, systems engineering, software engineering
- Key 3: Essential Expertise for User-Centered Team
- Modeling creates balance
- My spec says we should have animations, multi-touch, swiping, etc.
- My spec says we should have low-cost processors and display technology
- Key 4: Great touch-based GUI is more than an LCD and software
- The hardware/software considerations
- Interactive design considerations
- Product lines provide additional challenges
- Start small, moving from small footprint to full featured
- Key 5: Model throughout the lifecycle from desktop to product hardware
- Market research
- User studies
- Build GUI for reference hardware
- Verification user studies
- Iterate
Backchannel Conversation
Kicking off #WUD2013 with our first speaker @greerjb talking about content strategy in healthcare. pic.twitter.com/IWsSwePSbc
— Deborah Edwards-Oñoro (@redcrew) November 15, 2013
It’s a lot easier to buy shoes from Zappos than to buy health care. ~@greerjb #wud2013
— Deborah Edwards-Onoro (@redcrew) November 15, 2013
“We thought the coordination of benefits form was so important, we had it in 7 places on the site.” ~@greerjb #wud2013
— Deborah Edwards-Onoro (@redcrew) November 15, 2013
“Understand the user, provide consistent information, and complete the task.” #WUD2013
— Chelsea Figlan (@bells491) November 15, 2013
Significantly fewer pages on new site, but visits have increased. Getting rid of “dead wood” has helped. @greerjb #wud2013
— Deborah Edwards-Onoro (@redcrew) November 15, 2013
“Interfaces are changing all of the time. That’s why we need people who know UI to design them!” #WUD2013
— Chelsea Figlan (@bells491) November 15, 2013
Your interface must look good, run fast, be affordable, be timely, and be usable. #WUD2013
— Chelsea Figlan (@bells491) November 15, 2013
Our second #wud2013 speaker @tenglers talking about an insulin pump with touchscreen. pic.twitter.com/jKyRPeRxHm
— Deborah Edwards-Onoro (@redcrew) November 15, 2013
1 in 3 ppl will develop diabetes in their lifetime. Why’s this important to #WUD2013? Everything, if you have to use an insulin pump daily.
— Shannon Saksewski (@ssaksews) November 15, 2013
Medical graphical user interface is the Wild West, and we’re now making attempts at pioneering. @tenglers #WUD2013
— Shannon Saksewski (@ssaksews) November 15, 2013
When you go holiday shopping, do you buy a cardboard box and then figure out what fits in it? ~@tenglers #wud2013
— Deborah Edwards-Onoro (@redcrew) November 15, 2013
Design your experience around your estimated budget and then move up from there! #WUD2013
— Chelsea Figlan (@bells491) November 15, 2013
Yikes. @tenglers is talking about a company that had a 3,000 page specification for a product. I cannot imagine. #wud2013
— Deborah Edwards-Onoro (@redcrew) November 15, 2013
