Akira - Design Challenge

Overview:

Akira is a national on-demand virtual healthcare solution that gives members and their family direct access to secure medical consults with clinicians – 24/7 across the country.

The current in-app signup flow was designed and implemented with a small number of subscribing employers. This number has grown significantly and continues to do so rapidly. The current signup flow doesn’t scale well for an increasing number of unique employers and continues to run the risk of new members signing up for the wrong type of membership.

Research:

• Competitor analysis of similar telemedicine apps onboarding processes.

  • Maple - does not require verification at setup

  • EQ Care - requires validation of insurance during setup

  • Livecare - requires a link from healthcare practitioner in order to use platform

  • GoeVisit - setup account first, then pick plan type

• Heuristics evaluation to determine if there are any usability issues with the existing UI.

  • Consistency & Standards - The right text alignment is unconventional and difficult to read, especially when reviewing paragraphs of text. Left text alignment should be the standard for large text blocks.

  • Visibility of System Status- There is no indication of how many steps it will take the user to complete the signup process. The implementation of a progress bar would allow the user to know where they are throughout the entire process.

  • Aesthetic & Minimalist Design - There are several lists throughout the signup process that are overwhelming (ie: There are over 20 healthcare providers to select from). The design would be cleaner and more efficient with a dropdown list or a text input with provider recognition.

  • Help, Diagnose and Recover from Errors - The current platform is lacking clear error messaging to help the user recover from errors. For example, language like “please try again” is not a useful error message when users input their insurance number incorrectly. The user would more likely recover from an error if the messaging said: “This certificate number is too long, please double check the certificate number located on your healthcare benefits card”.

• Survey

  • I surveyed 5 Akira target users - young professionals aged 25-38 - about how and when they would signup for their account and if they would rather signup in the beginning or later.

  • 80% of users were most likely to signup as soon as they received the information about the app, otherwise they’ll forget about it.

  • Of the above 80%, 20% would most likely verify their account at a later time if their verification is through their insurance coverage because they don’t always have their insurance policy on them.

Original UI:

User Flows:

Original User Flow:

• The main issue with the below user flow is that users are given two options regarding how they would like to verify their account, however there is only one way that their account can be verified depending on which institution they are associated with. Some institutions have email verification setup with Akira while others have insurance policy certificate number verification. Since most users aren’t aware of which verification criteria to select, they experience errors and frustration with validating their account.

Revised User Flows:

• Divide signup process into manageable segments by asking the user to complete one task at a time.

• When the user enters their email address associated with their employer or school who subscribes to Akira services, their account is automatically validated and the user will not be prompted to enter their insurance information.

• If the user’s email cannot be verified by their email address throughout the signup process, an additional step will be added for the user to enter their insurance information for validation. The large list of insurance companies will be provided in a dropdown where the user can select which insurer they are with or they can type in the company name that will surface with auto recognition.

• The revised user flows alleviate errors when users sign up for their account because they are not given the option to select from different validation methods. Below is a streamlined path that gives the user control of whether or not they will validate their account during the process or after they have signed up.

• If the user skipped account validation during the signup process, they will be notified to enter their credentials to activate their account and if they require assistance they will be provided with Akira’s existing 24/7 customer service resources.

Wire-framing:

• After sketching wireframes based on my user flows I proceeded to develop the high-fidelity mockups.
  

High-Fidelity Mockups:

• Updated UI for more modern look and feel

• Added progress bar for user visibility of system status

• Clear direction messages and minimalist design

Constraints:

• Requires the development team to advise if proposed solution is technically feasible.

• No access provided to actual user data or real users to interview to gain a strong understanding of their frustrations.

• No ability to fully assess Akira’s competitors without obtaining a paid membership, thus a thorough competitor analysis was not plausible.

Reflection:

If I were to complete this challenge again I would add additional screens displaying how the user would verify their account within the app if they skipped it while creating their account. This was not addressed due to time constraints and the fact that their target market group indicated the majority of them would validate their account while signing up.