CASE STUDY

HealthCare.gov

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Header graphic that shows the home page example for the CES website

Client

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

timeline

2 months

product

Health Insurance Marketplace

case study overview

Improving Access to Affordable
Health Coverage

Launched in 2013, HealthCare.gov is designed to help uninsured Americans find affordable health insurance via an online marketplace.

challenge

Surge of Users Slows HealthCare.gov to a Crawl

Within hours of launching HealthCare.gov, over 250,000 visitors inundated the site, five times more than anticipated, causing a total system crash. Essential functions like account creation and plan applications suffered severe compromises, rendering the platform virtually inoperable for the consumers it aimed to serve.

Various screens from HealthCare.gov displayed in a grid on a light blue background

Select screens from the redesign of Healthcare.gov

Smartphone and tablet screens on a light blue background

A mixture of old screens and recent updates I made to original designs

solution

40 Million Users Enroll Through Redesigned HealthCare.gov

As a UX and UI designer, I implemented consistent design patterns and responsive components to optimize site performance while ensuring compliance with WCAG guidelines. The redesign of the marketplace eliminated unnecessary information and provided users with a more user friendly UI that allowed them to make more informed decisions about their healthcare, and cut their decision time in half.

These improvements were critical to HealthCare.gov's success, evidenced by over 460,000 users enrolling in a plan during the first week of the second enrollment period and over 40 million successful enrollments since the site's launch.

design highlights

Design Highlights

Browse through select designs from the Healthcare.gov, including recent updates made to revitalize the original design, which has been live for a decade, along with original screens and specifications that helped assist the engineering team.