ACME Health insurance shopping site on a laptop and tablet

UX design · Design systems · Front-end development

Insurance sales application Designing clarity into complex health insurance enrollment

Led hands-on UX design and coordinated a multidisciplinary design effort to simplify health insurance shopping and enrollment. Created user flows, wireframes, prototypes, and a reusable design system while contributing front-end code to a configurable, multi-tenant platform.

  • UX design & leadership
  • Prototyping
  • Design systems
  • Usability testing
  • Accessibility
  • Front-end development

The challenge

Simplifying a complex, highly regulated experience

Shopping for health insurance involves complicated decisions, unfamiliar terminology, and extensive eligibility and enrollment requirements. The challenge was to make this process easier to navigate without compromising regulatory compliance or the information needed to select appropriate coverage.

The application also needed to support multiple Blue Cross insurance organizations, each with its own business requirements, state-specific considerations, and integration needs.

Our goal was to create an intuitive, consistent, and configurable experience that could accommodate this complexity while helping members confidently evaluate and select coverage.

My role and scope

  • role
    Senior UX Designer / Developer

  • additional role
    Design team coordination and delivery leadership

  • team
    UX architects, visual designers, and developers

  • deliverables
    Configurable web application and design system

Application focus

  • Health plan selection and comparison

  • Provider search and network validation

  • Prescription drug cost estimates

  • Plan details and recommendations

Key contributions

Turning complex requirements into usable experiences

Combined UX strategic thinking with hands-on execution to deliver a scalable, multi-tenant solution.

  • UX strategy and conceptual design

    Translated business rules, regulatory considerations, and client-specific requirements into actionable UX approaches. Used design thinking and lean UX practices to explore solutions and refine workflows.

  • Design system development

    Created the initial design system, including typography, color standards, UI components, and interaction patterns, to establish consistency and support reusable implementation across the application.

  • User flows and wireframing

    Created activity diagrams, conceptual sketches, wireframes, and prototypes to define application behavior, simplify decision-making, and communicate requirements to business partners and developers.

  • Front-end development

    Worked directly with engineering teams and contributed production HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, helping translate design decisions into functioning interfaces.

  • Usability research and iteration

    Helped plan and lead usability studies to evaluate proposed interactions. Used findings to challenge assumptions and redirect UX flows when testing revealed opportunities for improvement.

  • Cross-functional coordination

    Coordinated UX architects and visual designers, delegated work based on project needs, tracked milestones, and reported progress to management while collaborating with agile development teams.

Selected work examples

From concept to implementation

A look at key artifacts and interfaces from the project, showing the evolution from research and design to a polished, responsive experience.

  • Hand-drawn wireframe sketches and notebook activity diagrams

    1. Discovery, sketches, and user flows

    Explored information architecture, decision paths, and interface concepts through activity diagrams, hand-drawn sketches, and early wireframes.

  • Help Me Choose a Plan guided selection screens

    2. Guided plan selection experience

    Designed interactions that helped users identify healthcare preferences, providers, prescriptions, and pharmacies to support more informed plan recommendations.

  • 2021 health plan results and comparison screens

    3. Plan comparison and details

    Developed experiences for reviewing plan recommendations, evaluating coverage and costs, filtering results, and comparing insurance options.

  • Design system typography scale and color standards

    4. Design system and development

    Established visual and interaction standards for a consistent experience, then worked alongside developers to implement and refine production interfaces.

The outcome

A scalable foundation for complex enrollment experiences

The work contributed to a configurable insurance sales application designed to serve multiple Blue Cross organizations while accommodating different business and state requirements.

  • Configurable multi-tenant experience

    Built a flexible architecture to support different markets, plan types, and state-specific requirements.

  • Research-informed decisions

    Used usability testing and user feedback to refine the design and improve clarity and confidence throughout the journey.

  • Reusable design standards

    Created a shared system of components and patterns to ensure consistency and scalability across organizations.

  • Design-to-development continuity

    Connected UX strategy with production implementation through direct front-end development contributions.

The bigger picture

Bridging UX strategy, design,
and development

This project demonstrates my ability to move between strategic problem-solving and detailed execution. From interpreting complex business requirements and sketching initial concepts to validating interactions, establishing design standards, and contributing production code, I worked across the full UX delivery process.

It also strengthened my ability to guide collaborative design efforts while remaining deeply involved in the craft of designing and building usable digital experiences.

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