Speculative Design for Business Strategy
How imagining “what could be” helped define business strategy and win new business
TL;DR:
4 business and 4 UXers imagined how a retirement finance company might uniquely help people prepare and save for health care costs in retirement.
We defined a cohesive, integrated digital vision that could help people confidently make better health and financial decisions.
The vision drove product strategy for years and led to securing new clients with McDuck money.
Role
Partner UX Designer
Key skills
Journey mapping \ Ideation \ Concept design
Opportunity
What’s possible in the next 5+ years?
A retirement finance company renewed it's focus on helping employees choose and use their employer-sponsored health and insurance benefits as health care costs in retirement rose (and continue to rise). Who better than a top retirement finance company to help people prepare and save for health care?
The business had one question: what do customers need and how can we help them at scale? Our team was asked to create a vision that brought together disparate health and wellness initiatives into a personalized, frictionless, and contextually adaptive digital experience.
Process
Started with magnifying glasses
We did our best anthropologist impressions to understand and document the problem space from health care customers, employers, and our firm’s perspectives.
We reviewed internal and external research
We spoke with product and technology partners
We interviewed health care users
Moved on to rose colored glasses
With that information and new unmet needs research, we mapped out an ideal version of a customer's journey with employer-sponsored benefits over their lifetime—from their first paycheck to retirement withdrawals and beyond.
The ideal customer journey map of a single customer across their lifetime
We vetted our assumptions and refined the ideal journey with internal stakeholders, before we narrowed in on a handful of moments that mattered to the company: the sweet spots of health care and finance problems.
One of our sweet spots: Medical bills??
Medical bills are difficult to understand—filled with jargon and numerous (maybe unexpected) charges. They usually come in the mail months after a health event and it’s never clear what actually has to be paid.
How might we make it easy for people to understand a bill and take action (make payment, dispute, etc.)?
Felt sketchy, might delete later
We brainstormed and added our ideas to the ideal customer journey, then ultimately generated a handful of conceptual sketches to illustrate more promising ideas which were used to help business partners imagine what was possible and help us refine our ideas into viable solutions.
Made the future a reality
Sketches were expanded and refined into conceptual click-through prototypes that encouraged discussion about market fit, technology availability, and potential partnerships.
Select conceptual design prototype: allow user to scan a bill they received in the mail and get real-time benefits explanation, health plan deductible tracking, and health account balance with suggested next steps and diverse payment methods.
Results
You’re making me blush
Each concept was tested for perceived usefulness, ease of use, expectations, and intended use (scale 0-5, 102 participants). They scored an average of 4.1 and were described as appealing, organized, helpful, professional, engaging, and trustworthy—confirming that our vision not only aligned with business goals, but customer needs as well.
Average score for concept perceived usefulness, ease of use, expectations, and intended use
That McDuck money
The strategic vision we delivered was used to create product roadmaps and win new business (read as $,$$$,$$$,$$$) for years.
