Having recently relocated to San Francisco, I was lucky enough to delve into the health insurance marketplace for new coverage. I’m now with Kaiser Permanente. Initially I was glad to see they had some online tools to help me stay connected with my doctor, reorder prescriptions and track my appointments. Yeah, making life simpler, right?
Well, that is what is supposed to happen. But the app falls far short.
The app has usability issues that cause me great frustration. But I’m not going to discuss the technical issues of the poor UI design. I really want to talk about the aesthetic components of the design, how it relates to and reflects on the brand, and how simplifying the presentation enhances to overall user experience.
The Problem(s)
The current Kaiser app has a dated appearance and lacks consistency throughout. The inspirational photography used in the “thrive” marketing program is unsuccessfully integrated. But most importantly, the critical information a user might seek is difficult to find due to the hierarchy given.
For example, every appointment prioritizes my name as the most important piece of information. Its not. The app is set up for me as the user; therefore, all the information within the app is relevant and specific only to me (or at least I hope it is!).
As a brief case study, I took it upon myself to enhance the design of the app to fix some of these problems. Granted, I am not a Kaiser brand expert, but I think I can glean a fair understanding of the Kaiser brand from being a client and researching online.
Designed with Adobe XD (beta)
Solutions
- I simplified and designed a more welcoming Sign In screen.
- Inspirational outdoor photography was used as background on Sign In screen and on Dashboard.
- Created a welcome message on the Dashboard and made the user interface more engaging.
- Reorganized the information on the Appointment screen in order of importance.
- Integrated the brand colors on the Menu screen as a contrast to main screens.
- Completed reorganized Message screen to provide consistency with other lists and to read more intuitively as messages.
- Reorganized the information on the Message screen in order of importance.