Optum App and Optum Guide Digital
Overview
The Optum app provides personalized, affordable healthcare support for members and their families. Manage care digitally by connecting to a range of services and providers. The app includes features such as scheduling doctor appointments, reviewing health records, ordering prescriptions, managing health finances like HSAs, and enrolling in secondary programs.
Tools: Voice of Customer research, open and closed card sorts, tree tests, user surveys, user interviews, Adobe Experience Manager, Qualtrics EM, creative workshops, QA support, UAT testing, CoPilot, and Figma.
Clickable Prototype
Keeping a clickable prototype of our Guide digital portal and React Native app enables the sales team to effectively showcase the platform to clients. By regularly updating the prototype with the latest features, we provide a clear representation of our vision and enable real‑time validation of designs through user testing. This approach not only strengthens our white-label sales strategy but also ensures the user experience is continuously shaped by direct feedback.
Care Navigation
Optum Guide is a comprehensive advocacy program designed to support our members, with a focus on those most affected by health challenges. Through the online portal or the Optum app, members can contact their individually assigned Care Guides by phone or chat to book appointments, get claims questions answered, and even find help sourcing food for their families. Using health records and claims data, Optum Guide provides real-time, personalized health recommendations to members experiencing recent lifestyle challenges or serious ailments.
Find and Price Care
Beyond using research methods such as card sorting and user interviews, we leveraged generative AI to synthesize a large volume of data related to finding a provider. This technology helped us consolidate information, identify themes, and recognize patterns in user behavior. Ultimately, we uncovered valuable insights that significantly shaped the design hierarchy and prioritized features, ensuring the greatest impact on the user experience when locating a doctor or pricing a procedure.
Streamlined Co-branding and White Labeling
We sold our product and app to clients with their branding in mind. We quickly applied client branding across the platform using semantic design tokens. In addition, vanity URLs and custom product pages in the app store ensure a familiar brand experience for clients’ employees when they access their sponsored benefits.
The design team provided a JSON file to streamline development and enable quick, efficient branded releases within a single sprint. This approach accelerated the implementation timeline while maintaining the highest standards for QA testing.
Optum App Flagship
A lofty goal is to seamlessly integrate seven UnitedHealth Group properties to empower our members to navigate their health needs more effectively. Whether checking an HSA, managing prescriptions, reviewing recent claims, or booking a doctor’s appointment for a child, the Optum app and Guide portal provide a comprehensive platform that streamlines these processes. We aim to help members achieve their health goals easily and conveniently, ensuring they have the tools they need at their fingertips.
Journey Based Design Work
Our UX team embarked on an ambitious assignment, quickly forming a small, dedicated design team to launch, pilot and support the first release all within a few months. Faced with tight deadlines, we empowered each designer to own their journey-based work, fostering a safe environment where creativity could thrive. Central to our success were design operations: we developed a file structure and delivery directory that ensured partners had easy access to flows and prototypes with each rapid release cycle.
Collaboration was a cornerstone of our process. We invited accessibility engineers, developers, architects, and sales representatives to participate in creative workshops. Diverse mindsets produce the best outcomes, and we tapped into this collective brainpower through engaging activities like sketch-a-thons and lightning demos. We also developed a governance process and a concept tear sheet, with weekly reviews and feasibility checks. Overall, our solid design process provided the foundation to navigate major challenges while delivering on time.
