The challenge
Elixir’s new member portal had features that could help people save money on their medications. However, two-thirds of users abandoned the portal during the 16-step onboarding flow. Members often put off registering until they had a problem, meaning their first interaction with the portal was during a time of high stress. Furthermore, customer care and clinical teams relied on fragmented SaaS applications that lacked live drug-comparison capabilities and proactive escalation workflows.
My role
As UX Lead, I led the redesign across both the member experience and the administrative tools that supported it. My responsibilities expanded to support the back-office SaaS transformation, acting as an advocate and facilitator across the company. I led a team consisting of a junior UX designer, a front-end developer, and a researcher. I also enforced design system governance to ensure WCAG compliance, led user research, facilitated requirements, and conducted workplace studies.
Technical and architectural execution
Discovery and Triage Interviews and contextual inquiries revealed that members only registered when facing an acute problem. Forcing them through 16 screens created immediate friction, leading to abandoned onboarding and increased support calls. Support reps were hindered by rigid internal software. We identified quick wins, like removing an 8-step Home Delivery signup sub-flow, which shaved approximately 4 minutes off the onboarding experience.
Modernising the back office I redesigned core operational surfaces within Elixir’s enterprise SaaS suite. I created an intelligent formulary lookup tool that cut processing time by up to 80% and drafted plans to upgrade from Excel to a robust SaaS tool. I also introduced contextual call handling with prompts alerting staff to callers with ongoing issues, enabling one-click referrals to pharmacists.
Intent-based routing and predictive savings We introduced dynamic intent detection for members logging in with urgent issues, deferring onboarding until their primary need was resolved. We also used data science to predict medication needs based on demographics and conditions to offer proactive savings information, especially for members without a claims history.
Experience improvements and WCAG compliance We replaced insurance jargon with everyday language targeted at a US 6th Grade reading level. We fixed over 200 contrast, focus indicator, and structural hierarchy issues, bringing the portal into full compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA.
The outcomes
The standard completion time dropped from 8 minutes to 1 minute 20 seconds. We saw a 125% increase in the completion rate and a 60% reduction in support calls, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. The portal achieved WCAG 2.1 AA certification, and the product and engineering teams adopted the core patterns for subsequent releases.