Digital Membership Card
Reimagining a once-overlooked digital card into a feature-rich, indispensable membership experience
My research encompassed:
Stakeholder Interviews: Spoke with product owners, customer support teams, and membership operations to gather insights on common user complaints and business constraints.
User Interviews: Conducted qualitative interviews with a diverse group of members to identify pain points, usage patterns, and desired features for the DMC.
Competitive Analysis: Benchmarked digital membership and ID solutions from comparable organizations, pinpointing feature gaps and best practices we could incorporate.
Synthesis & Insights: Mapped user journeys and consolidated findings into thematic categories (e.g., “Visibility & Access,” “Feature Expectations,” “Trust & Reliability”), forming the foundation for new design concepts.
A Digital Membership Card (DMC) is a secure, digital alternative to traditional physical cards, offering healthcare members a convenient way to manage their needs through a mobile app or online platform.
In the healthcare space, DMCs streamline identity verification, provide real-time access to insurance benefits and coverage details, and enable seamless appointment scheduling and management. By integrating with electronic health records (EHRs), DMCs also offer members secure access to their medical history, test results, and treatment plans.
Apart from usability issues and lack of feature the product team was also struggling to a maintain a separate database to manage the digital version of the membership cards as well as supporting the physical ID cards separately. This lead to:
- Increased complexity of the DMC infrastructure
- Increased maintenance cost to update and maintain both physical as well as digital membership card
- Lack of parity between physical card and DMC special design
Before starting other research, I identified the key business goal and outcomes for the redesign initiative
I carried out a thorough audit of the existing experience, assessing the current shortcomings based on accessibility and usability principles. This audit also helped convey the site’s core accessibility issues to non-designers.
Increase Member Adoption:
Position the Digital Membership Card as the primary resource for members by enhancing its functionality, accessibility, and ease of use.
Drive Operational Efficiency:
Reduce administrative overhead and support costs by replacing physical cards with a scalable, feature-rich digital solution
Match Between System and the Real World:
The digital card design does not visually or functionally resemble the physical membership card, creating a disconnect for users.
Consistency and Standards:
The back of card was not easily accessible
Add to wallet was placed in unsusual location
Share action was not utilizing native sharing capabilties
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
The interface is cluttered with redundant information and lacks visual hierarchy, making it overwhelming for users.
Help and Documentation
Support resources are buried in secondary menus, making it difficult for users to access help when needed.
Lack of parity between physical and digital
Our clients Digital Membership Card (DMC) struggled with low adoption due to limited visibility, outdated features, and a lack of intuitive design, falling short of modern healthcare needs.
Fig: Revealing the Pain: Capturing the pain points identified from the research interviews
I conducted a thorough competitive study of digital membership card experiences across various domains
Fig: Competitor Insights: Uncovering Key Opportunities
Our mission is to transform the Digital Membership Card into an indispensable companion—streamlined, feature-rich, and intuitively designed to elevate every member’s experience, we identified the below user experience goals to guide use through the transformation joruney
Framing Opportunities: Exploring Key Questions to Drive Innovation
How might we make the DMC the preferred membership tool over physical cards?
How might we ensure the DMC is intuitive for members of all technical abilities?
How might we leverage personalization to make the DMC more engaging and relevant to individual members?
How might we improve the visibility and accessibility of the DMC for members?
How might we build trust and reliability into the DMC experience for members?
How might we incorporate security and privacy features without complicating the user experience?
How might we enhance the DMC with features that provide added value beyond basic identification?
How might we integrate the DMC seamlessly into members’ daily routines?
How might we bridge gap between physical and digital cards
The ideation phase began by leveraging the How Might We (HMW) statements to spark creativity and guide design exploration. These statements served as a framework to break down the core challenges and opportunities identified during research, allowing the team to focus on user-centric solutions.
Outlining my apporach for ideation for the DMC experience:
• Brainstormed a wide range of ideas for each HMW statement, encouraging innovative and bold concepts without constraints.
• Categorized ideas/features with respect to the HWM statements and area of impact
Facilitated cross-functional workshops involving stakeholders, designers, and developers to gather diverse perspectives and insights.
• Employed dot voting and impact-feasibility matrices to identify the most promising ideas to move forward.
• Translated selected ideas into quick sketches and high-fidelity prototypes to visualize potential solutions.
Fig: Prioritization session conducted with the product owner where I priotized the potential solutions
Using insights from the usability studies, we refined the final design to address all identified issues, ensuring a streamlined navigation, clearer labeling, improved feature discoverability, and enhanced visual hierarchy. These updates created a more intuitive, user-friendly, and effective Digital Membership Card experience tailored to meet user needs and expectations
I documented and delivered the final designs for 2024 prioritized features
Building for the Future: A Commitment to Continuous Improvement
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Designing for Impact in Healthcare UX:
Breaking into Healthcare UX:
As my first project in the healthcare space, this experience broadened my understanding of the industry, including its unique challenges and opportunities.
Competitor Analysis as a Catalyst:
Conducting a thorough competitor analysis not only informed design patterns but also accelerated my domain knowledge, enabling more targeted solutions.
Power of Stakeholder Alignment:
Engaging stakeholders early and consistently ensured shared goals and streamlined progress throughout the project.
Iterative Design for Precision:
The iterative approach allowed me to continuously refine the designs, ensuring they aligned with user needs and business goals.
Research as a Foundation:
Synthesizing initial and existing research gave me a comprehensive understanding of the problem space, laying the groundwork for informed and impactful design decisions.
“The Digital Membership Card just isn’t cutting it—outdated, hard to find, and no one’s excited to adopt it. We need to make it smarter and more useful for our members. Also it really difficult to manage both phsyical and digital cards individially
- - Senior Product Owner
A National Leader in Healthcare a people-first organization founded on innovation, compassion, and patient-centered service, dedicated to delivering high-quality, affordable care and improving the health of the communities we serve.
In an increasingly digital world, physical ID cards are quickly losing their relevance—yet the existing digital membership card offered little more than a replica of its physical counterpart. Our goal was to elevate the DMC into a first-class product: one that people prefer over physical cards, with robust features that address real user needs.
As part of this project, I focussed on reimagining the user experience of the digital membership cards for both web and mobile app platforms.
Heuristic Evaluation, User Research, Research Synthesis, Competitive analysis, Ideation, Sketching, Information Architecture, Wireframing, Visual Design, Prototyping and A/B testing, Usability testing
Aug 2023 - Mar 2024
Usability Testing: Validating Future-State Designs
To ensure the future-state designs for the Digital Membership Card (DMC) addressed all identified problems effectively, we conducted usability testing with a diverse group of users. The primary goal was to gather feedback on the proposed solutions and validate their alignment with user needs and expectations.
Improved Discoverability:
Participants found it significantly easier to locate core features for the digital membership card, thanks to the redesigned navigation and layout.
Enhanced Visual Appeal:
Users appreciated the modern look and feel, which incorporated elements from the physical card while maintaining a clean and intuitive interface.
Simplified Workflows:
Tasks that previously felt cumbersome were now completed more efficiently, reducing frustration.
Minor usability issues were identified, such as the need for clearer labels on certain buttons and more prominent confirmation messages.
New Feature Usefulness:
Participants highlighted the usefulness of new features, such as personalized shortcuts and real-time status updates, which added significant value to their overall experience.
Overloaded Navigation and copy:
A few users felt that the navigation still had too many options, which could overwhelm first-time users.
Confusing Labels: Some buttons and features had unclear labels, leading to hesitation or incorrect interactions.
In 2024, we successfully delivered the first phase of enhancements to the Digital Membership Card, focusing on core improvements that address the most critical user needs.
Moving forward, we will continue to refine design concepts and conduct usability testing to validate our solutions. Future efforts will prioritize delivering additional features and functionalities, ensuring the DMC evolves to meet the growing expectations of our users while maintaining a seamless and intuitive experience.”