CENTENE TRUECARE APPLICATION
Enterprise software design and design system creation
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Goal: Enhance Centene's TrueCare software system; improve usability and streamline processes; empower case managers, enhance customer experiences
My Role: Assisting with Workshop Facilitation, Assisting with UX Research Activities (Parsing out information from contextual inquiries, Journey Mapping, Persona Creation, Storyboard Development), Application Design, Design System Creation
Pain Points: navigation difficulties, document retrieval challenges, and note-taking struggles for case managers
Methodology: conduct research and ideation workshops; create prototypes for testing and feedback; utilize Design Thinking framework; implement a new design system based on Centene's brand guidelines; collaborate with engineers using Agile methodology and design sprints
Project Outcome: deliver design solutions for TrueCare software system; hand over final designs and research artifacts to Centene for implementation; improved usability and streamlined processes; empowered case managers; potential for enhanced customer experiences
PROblem Statement
The objective is to decrease the amount of time case managers spend on coordinating documentation for customers using enterprise software.
In 2019, I joined a diverse team consisting of researchers, engineers, project managers, and fellow designers with the purpose of enhancing Centene's enterprise software system, TrueCare. Collaborating closely with Centene, our team provided consultation, conducted user research, and offered recommendations to address the shortcomings of the existing software.
The pre-redesign version of the software presented numerous challenges. Case managers faced difficulties navigating the system and locating specific documents and resources. Our extensive field studies revealed that users had resorted to creating "workarounds" to accomplish their tasks. They circumvented the software and sought assistance from other employees who had easier access to the required documentation. Additionally, we discovered that note-taking during case manager calls with customers posed another issue. Case managers often resorted to paper notes, which required proper disposal to comply with information security regulations. These issues not only hindered the onboarding process for new case managers but also resulted in a steep learning curve. Moreover, significant time was dedicated to managing documentation streams, leaving minimal time for meaningful customer interactions.
Overall, our goal was to address these software-related challenges, improve usability, streamline processes, and empower case managers to focus their efforts on delivering exceptional customer experiences.
USERS
Customer-facing Employees at Centene
TEAM
Researchers
Engineers
Project Managers
Designers
MY ROLES
Assisting with Workshop Facilitation, Assisting with UX Research Activities (Parsing out information from contextual inquiries, Journey Mapping, Persona Creation, Storyboard Development), Application Design, Design System Creation
YEAR
2019
PROCESS
Our process as a team was two-fold. We worked in an Agile environment in tandem with the engineers on the project. And we used Design Thinking methodologies to discover the best solutions to the issues the case managers were experiencing with the software.
The Design Thinking framework we used for this project included the following steps:
Business Hypothesis - Creating a tangible picture of what the business challenge is.
Customer Perspective - The goal is to validate the hypothesis so that any future design work is based on facts.
Design Challenge - Create a concrete definition of the problems so that we know what needs to be resolved.
Ideation - Generate as many ideas as possible and then prioritize them with the biggest potential in mind.
Prototyping - Bring ideas to life so that we can refine them even more through working on them in detail.
Testing - Normally at this point, the process would include testing. Key role in the investigation. What works and what doesn’t work. The goal is to filter the best solutions out of the ordinary ones and improve them.
Our project wasn’t allowed to receive proper testing due to funding being pulled, but it did go through development.
Working with UX methodologies and Agile
Working in tandem with engineers as they are developing the software was a balance and challenge. We worked at least a couple of weeks ahead of the development schedule and used design sprints to look at features that we wanted to include in the design. We then were able to deliver design solutions to the engineering team by the time they were ready to do their sprint planning and work on the development of the software.
Research Methods
The research was mainly the responsibility of the researchers on the team, but I was able to assist in nearly every one of the exercises with the exception of field study. Not only was this interesting to learn a little more about the process but gave me an opportunity to work with real data for hands-on practice. The researchers completed field studies/contextual inquiry where they went to a significant number of case managers’ workplaces and observed them working while recording the process. They then took that back and we were able to parse out data from those observations. After we completed pulling that information we were able to work on current-case journey mapping, and creating user personas. We studied that information, created a “wish list” of features that would help the case manager do their jobs more efficiently. We then took that list and prioritized them by most impactful and focused our efforts on designing a system that would include those higher ranked features.
Ideating
Workshops with case managers and engineers that included ideating exercises and whiteboarding sessions. From those workshops, we were able to create happy path journey maps and illustrated storyboards that gave us a better understanding of the solutions we want to provide for the software redesign.
Happy Path Storyboard with Alternative ending
Design System
I started the process of creating a new design system around Centene’s established brand standards/style guidelines. Using colors, fonts, and iconography they had provided and approved. I used Atomic Design methodology and gradually created complex components that were fed into a component library and pattern library.
Software UI Layout
The final design was a culmination of work from research, feature studies that resulted from that work, working with the stakeholders and their input, and the engineers’ technology capabilities.
Final Results
We wrapped up the project sending the final screen views, design system, and research artifacts to Centene. The engineers had made plans to implement some of the designs we had created, but not all. Working as a consultant is very different from owning the project internally. Making the final decisions, either based on fact or theory is still in the project owner’s hands. I would’ve been interested to see how the designs would’ve been received given the chance for usability testing or workshop reviews with users.