Corestream: New baseline UX
A good first impression for 3m+ new users
👉 Background
Corestream, a voluntary benefits company, was shifting to a product-lead growth model when I came on board. The organization was just starting to invest in product and design, which meant the UX needed a lot of work to bring it up to modern standards and meet user expectations. The company was in the final stages of closing a partnership deal, which would bring an additional 3m+ users to our platform.
🤔 Problem
Provide the best possible experience to new users while keeping design solutions within engineering scope and launch timelines.
👩💻 Users
Employees of small businesses using our partner to manage payroll. This user group presented an interesting challenge because of the (lack of) relationship between them and the partner.
🛠 Roles & Responsibilities
Me: UX research, UX design, UX writing
Team:
Business Analyst
Developers
CTO functioning as PM
Partnerships team
🧗♀️ Process
Research
Evaluated existing experience
Competitive analysis
Limited user testing
User session recordings
Heatmaps
Problems + Hypotheses
Documented user problems and potential solutions
Defined improvement focus areas:
Login friction
Problem: Users were required to provide their employee ID# as well as verify their identity through email. Research showed that both of these requirements were points of friction and were negatively impacting login success rates.
Hypothesis: Eliminating the need to enter EID# and providing other verification options will increase login success.
Navigation
Problem: Users don’t understand what’s available to them on the site and how to get there.
Hypothesis: Improved navigation and wayfinding will increase participation.
Value proposition
Problem: Users don’t understand why Corestream’s offerings are valuable. Users don’t understand why they might be interested in individual benefit products.
Hypothesis: Improved articulation of value propositions at the portal and product levels will improve user sentiment and participation.
🎨 Design
After many rounds of feedback and iterative design, we landed in a place everyone was comfortable with for our V1 rollout.
Solutions to previously defined focus areas:
Login friction
Problem: Users were required to provide their employee ID# as well as verify their identity through email. Research showed that both of these requirements were points of friction and were negatively impacting login success rates.
Solution: Don’t require EID# if we’re able to match the user’s email to our data for identity verification. Allow users to verify through email or SMS text.
Navigation
Problem: Users don’t understand what’s available to them on the site and how to get there.
Solution: New top navigation with clearer labeling and direct access to new product detail pages (PDP). Task-based tiles in the page hero.
Value proposition
Problem: Users don’t understand why Corestream’s offerings are valuable. Users don’t understand why they might be interested in individual benefit products.
Solution: Better content across the board. Value prop section at bottom of homepage to show the practical use of the benefit offerings. New PDPs provide a better layout and information hierarchy so users can educate themselves on each offering.
