Cameron Ross

Creating a reimbursement journey to increase sign-up and meet diversity targets

Time to read:

7 minutes

Objective

The strategic decision was made to run an on-platform experiment to offer a £10 reimbursement to participants of the research programme, with the aim of increasing sign-up, particularly from low-income and minority ethnic groups. I was the designer in a project team tasked with:

  • Enabling participants to understand the availability of a voucher
  • Enabling participants to claim or donate a voucher, once they are eligible
  • Ensuring the cost effectiveness of the initiative

Design and ideation

As the requirements were clear, I facilitated a workshop to align team members and begin ideation on how the problem could be solved.

In this workshop I shared the goals of the experiment, time frames and the scope of the work, as well as existing insights from the off-platform test with paper vouchers.

Based on the requirements and existing insights, we collaboratively generated How Might We statements to inform later ideation and problem solving.

  1. How might we avoid participants feeling pressured to donate the voucher back?
  2. How might we ensure users are comfortable claiming their voucher?
  3. How might we ensure those in the pilot claim before the deadline?
  4. How might we help users know where they can spend the voucher?

Sketching

I facilitated three ideation exercises. An ice breaker to help colleagues relax into the exercise, and two rounds of sketching.

Photos of a selection of around 25 rough sketches in pencil on paper. The sketches show different ideas to solve the problem.
Sketches from a team ideation session

Following the ideation session, I had gathered knowledge and ideas from the team to design an initial proposal.

Adapting the existing journey

For the frontend experience, I identified touch-points where there was value in providing the voucher messaging. These leveraged existing understanding on user behaviour in the journey and included:

  • Content on the landing page
  • Content following consenting to join the programme
  • Content on the account dashboard
Four high fidelity mock-ups of a landing page, showing new content added to each using different design system components. On some pages the content has higher visual affordance due to the visual design of the component used.
Exploration of how the use of design system components impacts the visual hierarchy of the content on the landing page

I brought initial designs for the landing page to a design huddle for feedback from the wider organisation design team. This allowed me to consider different perspectives and refine the the user interface design.

Two screens of a step by step process with information added relating to reimbursement. the screens are annotated with coloured sticky notes with various pieces of feedback on the visual and information design.
Design critique and ideation with the wider design team

I collaborated closely with colleagues across multiple teams:

  • Communications – As the initiative sponsor and owner of brand messaging, I ensured visibility of progress to the Director of Communications and ensured their feedback was considered throughout. I explained design decisions in plain English, and explained the evidence and best friend which informed the design of the experience.
  • Behavioural science – To consider how different messaging and points of interaction could impact the behaviour of claiming or donating, ensuring I was considering the cost implications.
  • Content design – To ensure content enabled participants to complete the task.
  • Ethics – To ensure the experience met the requires of our Research Ethics Committee and was not seen to be “paying” for participation.
  • Engineering – To understand technical feasibility and platform integration of the solution.

Designing the journey to claim or donate the voucher

I created wireframes of the claim/donate journey to visualise and iterate on the high-level layout of the pages with colleagues from content design and behavioural science.

Five low-fidelity wireframes in mobile. They show the steps a user must go through to claim a voucher, starting from their dashboard.
Low fidelity wireframes showing early user experience design for the claiming journey

This journey was designed to facilitate claiming or donating the £10 voucher. It utilised:

  • One thing per page – to reduce cognitive load and follow best practice
  • Decision confirmation – to allow users to recover from errors
  • Sign-posting to the voucher partner, and setting expectations for support
  • Voucher status, shown on the dashboard – to encourage participants to act and make them aware of the expiry date
Three images of a clickable card component, demonstrating how as time passes a countdown provides written and visual indication of the expiry date.
A tag component from the design system was utilised within a card component to communicate the voucher expiry
Three high fidelity screen designs showing the step-by-step process to claim a voucher.
The journey uses design system components throughout, with a focus on low cognitive load and the opportunity to confirm the decision
Two screens showing the page allowing users to access the voucher, and the account dashboard with a clickable card component to access the aforementioned link.
At the end of the journey, an external link is provided to the voucher partner to collect the voucher. A dashboard card allows users to re-access this information.


I utilised the design system at all points of the journey, enabling rapid prototyping and development, and ensuring accessibility.

Experiment result

Overall experiment results indicated 24% more people who register for the programme and are offered reimbursement would go on to become full participants.

For the most deprived groups this increased to 27%, and increased by 19% for under-represented ethnic groups.

In order to leverage these significant increases in the likelihood of becoming a full participant the initiative was rolled out to all participants.

Iteration

I facilitated a user-centred design workshop to capture potential improvements to the journey before rollout. additionally, I collected insights from the study support team and mapped information needs for returning participants who had joined the programme before reimbursement was available.

This exercise helped the team to identify areas to explore in usability research and later AB testing.

An annotated end-to-end user journey highlighted areas of opportunity prior to going live with the experience.
Identifying and prioritising opportunities for improvement
Information exposure mapped as a flow chart showing what pieces of information users have available depending on their route into the experience.
Mapping information exposure for entry points

Usability testing

Usability testing was conducted on the end-to-end journey with the objective of gathering qualitative insight into the understanding of the voucher and the ability to claim or donate it. Findings included:

  • Overall, there was a good level of comprehension on reimbursement content
  • Some participants misunderstood the 14 day window to claim or donate
  • Both the journeys to claim and donate the voucher had minimal pain points
  • The most common question about the voucher was where can it be spent
  • Overall respondents were agreeable to the concept of reimbursement

Changes made

  • In the invitation letter, wording was amended to bring more clarity to the 14 day window in which to claim or donate
  • On the landing page, further information was added on the option to donate the voucher
  • On the participant dashboard, an expander was added with details about the initiative, for users return directly into their account
  • Alongside the days remaining to claim, the date and time of the voucher expiry was added.
Two clickable cards with a day countdown, one shows the time and date the voucher will expire, showing how the design was enhanced based on user needs.
Follow usability testing, the time and date of expiry was added to the clickable card, to add clarity and confidence to the timing provided

Outcome and impact

To date the journey has facilitated over 420,000 reimbursement claims including over 90,000 active donations of the voucher back to the Our Future Health charity. The initiative is seen as a key element of the current success of the programme.

The journey to claim or donate the voucher also has a 96% conversion rate.

Continuous improvement

The voucher ID and voucher support contact details were not available to participants who had already claimed a voucher.

This meant users could not seek support from the voucher partner when trying to spend their voucher, and the Our Future Health support team were receiving upwards of 40 calls a week asking for support.

To address this problem, I rapidly go-designed a solution with the content designer in the team, to allow participants to access their voucher ID and voucher parter contact details from their account.

On the left, the old design shows a link to the voucher, on the right the new design shows a link to a voucher support page. this page is also shown and allows the user to access their voucher, voucher ID and contact details for support.
The old voucher messaging on the left, and the new Your voucher page on the right, allowing users to access their voucher ID and contact details

Following the launch of this self-service experience, support requests to the Our Future Health team have been reduced 99%.

Reflection

This project was delivered at pace, to validate a strategic priority. I led a collaborative team leveraging existing insights and best practice.

The experience was then validated prior to rollout through usability testing. The high success rate of claiming and donating vouchers validated the design at scale.

Our Future Health aims to be the UK’s largest and most diverse research programme. This project allowed the organisation to huge strides towards this goal, ultimately supporting more inclusive research and scientific discoveries.