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United states postal service
Employee Health Benefits Enrollment Portal
About
Deloitte Digital was contracted to create an open enrollment web portal for USPS employees and retirees for the 2025 enrollment year. The Digital team worked iteratively with USPS to create a user-centered portal by conducting extensive usability testing, providing research findings, and working closely with stakeholders to align on solutions that not only help users compare health plans, but also provide them opportunities for education to empower them to select the most cost effective plan in better confidence.
Problem
The design team was tasked to find the biggest issues within legacy system to prioritize for sprint cycles. Once issues were identified, design solutions needed to be signed off by client and brought to the development team for implementation.
Solution
I led the team to leverage usability testing so we could bring validated solutions to USPS and give our development teams specifications on the features and new updates they needed prioritize.
my role

redesign and First launch

Winter 2023 - Summer 2024
Design contributor & design lead for team of two designers

2026 enrollment updates

Fall 2024 - Current
Design contributor & design lead for team of two designers
Platform Features
Platform features

search and add providers

Users can add their current doctor information, or search and add new doctors. Coverage for each doctor can then be seen when selecting a plan.

search and add Prescriptions

Users can add prescriptions for each of their family members, then see the cost breakdown for each prescription when selecting a plan.

search and ADd treatments

Users can access the most relevant healthcare information by entering specific procedures and treatments tailored to their own needs and those of their families.

Browse and compare plans

Users can add mutilpe health plans to a que where they can then compare the details for each.
Where It Started
Where it started

challenges working with a legacy system

The biggest challenge in leading the design effort for USPS was delivering a user-centric solution within the confines of a internal legacy system that served as the basis platform for our team to enhance.

The screenshot below demonstrates how the legacy solution would have users to remove a dependent in the case of changes to their family status. The only was for users to remove a dependate was to work their way through the dashboard to their settings, where they would then have click the "Remove" link paired with a trashcan icon.
Project Planning
Project planning

Milestones

To be sure we hit all of our milestones, I worked with project managers to plan on staggering our work efforts between usability testing, design system updates, and final compositions to help get a high level view of how I could delegate task between our team of three.
Usability Testing
Usability testing

Testing the legacy version

We anticipated friction throughout the experience, but testing the legacy version provided valuable insights to build a strong case for prioritizing updates during internal planning and client discussions. To ensure meaningful user feedback, we partnered with USPS to facilitate usability testing with current and retired postal workers.
6 USPS ENROLLEES
4 RETIREES
2 ACTIVE EMPLOYEES

98

QUOTES
CAPTURED

04

THEMES
IDENTIFIED

32

UPDATES
ADDED

Provider search feature
1/6 SUCCESS RATE
12 QUOTES CAPTURED

Problem

The legacy interaction required users to make entry at the top of the page, then make a selection further down the page. During testing we saw users struggle to scroll up and down continuously to add doctors and facilities to their search.

"Again, I don't know all the scrolling up and down you have to do."

- USPS Retiree

“Didn't I already select a doctor? It's confusing these cards appear with selected doctors underneath the search results.”

- USPS Retiree

Solution

The solution we provided after considering the feedback from users identifies two different use cases users can have when searching for a new doctor or care facility, entering your current doctor information, or finding new doctors.

This enables users inputting current doctor information to have a more simplified experience and gives users looking for new doctors a design that surfaces more information about doctors. Each solution keeps interaction above the fold on both desktop and mobile versions.
ADding Your current doctor information
Features
  • Identified as the interaction the majority of users will select.
  • Leverages a simple type ahead for entry.
  • Zip code and medical specialty can help narrow search.
ADding new doctors
Features
  • Features search, then search results page.
  • Surfaces ratings, gender, location, and if doctors are accepting new patients.
  • Map view is shown along side results, toggles between list view on mobile
Health plan details
23 QUOTES GATHERED
1 THEME IDENTIFIED

Problem

When users are browsing and comparing plans they have the option to access more plan details where they are brought to a plan details page. During testing, we found that although this page in the legacy version had lots of information, users had a hard time finding information that was relevant to them.
‍
The legacy details page featured a laundry list of costs for treatments. Here we saw users scrolling through the monotonous list without much of care for any of the details.

“Wow that's giving a whole lot of information. It's a shame we are left to figure all of this out ourselves"

- USPS Active Employee

“There's a lot to read and take in here”

- USPS Retiree

Solution

The solution proposed and implementedenables users to enter the specific medical care that they find important for themselves or their families. Their entries can then be seen in the details of each plan.

We assumed this would greatly help the experience for users so they are no longer looking at a long list of generic costs, and can instead see how coverage will shake out for treatments they need.
Design Pillars
Design Pillars

Education

Many of the health plan comparison tools out there are littered with tooltips, each one only providing a few sentences to explain important health plan details. HealthChoice features generous opportunities for educational moments by surfacing helpful content either directly on pages, or in large quarter page modals. Tooltips are only used sparingly, and only if more detailed information is not relevant.

Identifying the opportunity to educate users throughout their experience, and making it one of our primary pillars, aligned our internal teams and clients around an

Guidance

An important virtue for our teams is to hold the users hand throughout the entirety of their health plan selection process. A great way to stay true to this value is to break content down into more steps, as opposed to leaving users scrolling long pages.

one 👏 step 👏 at 👏 a 👏 time

By leveraging a questionnaire template, users can customize their own experience through logic trees throughout flows where specific information is needed. No more need for users to instead of managing their family members in a dashboard.

Personalization

An important virtue for our teams is to hold the users hand throughout the entirety of their health plan selection process. A great way to stay true to this value is to break content down into more steps, as opposed to leaving users scrolling long pages.
Results
Results

18% decrease in call center volume

Once open enrollment season was complete, reports showed that call center traffic dropped 18%. Case workers also noted far less complaints regarding the new open enrollment system.

12% increase in retiree engagement

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Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts

Future efforts

In this case study, I highlight the redesign of two key features in the enrollment portal: the Customer Decision Support Tool (CDST) and the Qualitative Life Event Flow (QLE). These features underwent the most significant updates, as usability testing allowed us to prioritize them for improvement. Given a tight timeframe and limited development resources, we leveraged the legacy system to support the dashboard that connects these flows and others.

Looking ahead, I hope to further enhance the dashboard for a more user-friendly experience.
Next case study
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Thanks for you time,
- Adrian