Background

The Innovation Learning Ecosystem was a UnitedHealth Group initiative to help employees find the right innovation resources at the right time. From tailored learning paths, to podcasts, this learning portal has resources of all kinds to support any mind. When the product was early in its beta version, I worked closely with the leadership team to help define and refine the ecosystem's nomenclature and navigation to drive more engagement from employees.

My Role

As the lead UX Researcher on the project, I performed mixed methods research to resolve navigation issues, improve overall user experiences and increase user engagement for the platform.

Methods

I wanted to gather as much qualitative and quantitative data as possible since this was a brand new initiative from the company. The following methods allowed my to do so:

Surveys
Word Cloud
Affinity Diagram
Interviews
NPS Scores

Results

I learned that the beta version of the platform contained many navigation issues and some of the terminology used throughout the site really confused users. By improving the website's navigation and using simple plain language that matched users' mental models, active user engagement increased by 116% within the first week.

The Process

Surveys

I approached the project by first wanting to understand how early users were interacting with the platform. I created a survey and sent it out to all members of thesite to collect behavioral and usage data. The survey had a total of 20 questions, 16 multiple choice and 4 open ended. Over 60 users responded, with a 95% completion rate. I analyzed all the responses and performed a statistical analysis to draw insights. The insights really helped me identify two major pain points; navigation and terminology issues. It also helped me identify aspects of the platform that users enjoyed, like its resources section, which users said "supported their innovation needs and goals”.

Net Promoter Scores

NPS scores were important to the leadership team to understand how satisfied users were with the portal. I included an open-ended net promoter question at the end of the survey, which allowed me to perform the calculation. The platform had a NPS score of 60, indicating that users were very satisfied and willing to recommend it to other colleagues.

Word Cloud

I asked users "what are the most useful aspects of the platform" on the survey to learn about what value the platform is currently providing. I applied a weighted word count to each response while analyzing the surveys, which allowed me to create a word cloud to visually show emerging themes. 4 major themes emerged (access, content, navigation, and personalized learning).

Affinity Diagram

Interviews

I wanted to gain more insight about the pain points and success stories users expressed in their open-ended responses, so I followed up with 10 users via email to schedule phone interviews. I targeted users who expressed both, major concerns and major success, in their responses. The interviews allowed me to gather and synthesize deep rich data to give actionable design recommendations to the platform's design and leadership team.

Seeing It Happen

I met with the design and leadership team to assess the feasibility of my recommendations and they were all feasible. A total of 5 design changes were implemented immediately to the platform, which increased total engagement rates by 116% in the first week.

5 Design Changes • +116% User Engagement

Optum