UX Research
Asset Health Wellness Programs
12-week discovery study with employees managing chronic illness. We found how program don't fit how they already manage their health and turned these gaps into 2 recommendations to increase enrollment and participation
Role
UX Researcher
Domain
B2B Healthtech
Duration
12 weeks
Team
3 UX Researchers
Problem
Wellness programs kept getting designed
for the people already enrolled in it
Asset Health told us that enrollment skewed toward employees who were already health-conscious. But those were were less inclined, who arguably needed these programs most, were underrepresented. That gap was our starting point
Fuzzy goal
How might we increase the participation of medically underrepresented employees in wellness programs?
Refining problem scope
Our problem scope was too broad to study in 12 weeks so we conducted background research into workplace wellness to narrow down what we were researching. We learned that chronic health conditions specifically put a major toll on employees in the workplace. Oftentimes wellness programs do not offer incentives for disease management
Research plan
After refining our research question, we could redirect our focus on understanding employees with chronic illness and barriers in their participation. Our goal was to identify find ways to make participation easier and more incentivizing
My literature review defined project direction and scoped down our research focus to increasing employee engagement. Interviews were our primary research method to uncover pain points and unmet needs not readily available online
We interviewed 1 Asset Health wellness coach to learn more about known issues about program accessibility. We interviewed 4 participants who have (and have not) managed chronic illness as well as those who are (and are not) enrolled in wellness programs to examine patterns in attitudes and opinions about the programs
| ID | Manages chronic illness? | Enrolled in program? | Interviewer |
|---|---|---|---|
| P1 | No | Yes, currently | Sophie |
| P2 | No | Yes, currently | Ally |
| P3 | Yes | No, previously | Sophie |
| P4 | Yes | No, never | Vaishnavi |
| S1 | N/A | N/A | Shreyas |
Study planning
Interviews
Analyze
Define
Recommend
Data Analysis
3 things got in the way of participation
01
Enrollment is long and rigid, and goal deadlines aren't flexible for chronic illness, making it hard to enroll and keep up with the program
02
Employees with personalized support in order to better suit their health needs rather than a one-size-fits-all incentive structure
03
Employees with chronic illness already have a set of existing healthcare providers, and that wellness programs overlap with existing medical care
Signing up for the program should be quick and easy. I can't concentrate long enough to complete the forms
Interview participant
The $150 they give me doesn't really matter much compared to the health benefits
Interview participant
I rely on healthcare providers for advice because they’re more realistic
Interview participant
Employees with chronic illness aren't disengaged because they lack motivation. They're disengaged because the program doesn't fit how they already manage their health. This re-frame led us to approach recommendation development with a focus on aligning program enrollment and rewards with their needs
Recommendations
Identifying opportunities for employee participation
1. Integrate medical care history into enrollment
Reduce the effort and time required for enrollment by integrating previous medical care history
2. Let users choose their own reward
Enable employees to choose from, or request, a range of rewards to match what they want
We cut 1 recommendation after stakeholder feedback on lack of feasibility and cost
3. Wellness sessions during work hours
Offer free wellness sessions during work hours
Due to time constraints, we had to select only 2 recommendations to move forward with presenting to Asset Health. We used a Pugh matrix, weighing effort, feasibility, and cost to rank the most important ones to our research goals
Impact
Takeaways
Given a broad problem scope, I learned how to explore a problem space and narrow it down into a focused problem statement through the research discovery and definition process. Stakeholder touch-bases and peer feedback sessions taught me to deliver data and research findings in a clear and meaningful way