Tigerless Health is an insurance company that offers specialized health insurance plans to foreigners in the United States. I was Tigerless’s first in-house UX designer and worked with a cross-functional team that included 2 engineers, 1 product manager, 1 graphic designer, 1 copywriter, and leads from marketing and legal teams.

Duration

4 Months

(2022 Jun-Oct)

My Role

UI/UX Designer

Internship

Overview

Making insurance plans more accessible for international students and visitors in the U.S.

Tigerless Health operates in a niche market, offering specialized health insurance plans to foreigners in the United States. Users input their personal information and are presented with various health insurance options tailored to different types of international students and visitors. They can then select the optimal plan based on their specific needs

However, to view the final price, users must navigate a lengthy process of inputting information and selecting plans based on complex insurance terminology such as deductibles, premiums, and out-of-pocket expenses.

“How might we create a user-friendly one-stop shop for insurance plans that simplifies the selection process and enhances pricing transparency for international visitors?”

Our goal was to streamline access to health insurance plans for international visitors. The redesigned interface aligns with users' mental models, optimizing the browsing experience on mobile devices and reducing cognitive load during plan selection. This user-centric approach resulted in a significant 21% increase in completed insurance applications post-redesign.

Skills

Competitive Analysis

Interviews

UI Design

Prototyping

User Testing

Defining Our Value Proposition

To better define Tigerless Health's value proposition, we conducted a matrix analysis focusing on health insurance companies serving international students. The matrix is based on two primary dimensions:

  1. Is the target audience specifically international visitors or general?

  2. Is the enrollment process intuitive or complicated?

The analysis revealed that many competitors in this space, while focusing on international visitors, struggle with complex enrollment processes and suboptimal user interface designs. Therefore, we defined the value proposition of Tigerless Health as “a user-friendly health insurance platform specifically designed for international students and visitors”.

Competitive User journey Analysis

We then examined how major health insurance companies designed the process from users entering the landing page to viewing plan details.

We evaluated each company's enrollment process, focusing on user experience factors. Key findings include:

  • Humana: Highest rated for simplified plan search and clear information presentation.

  • Oscar Health: Scored 8/10 despite having the most steps, due to clear mobile navigation and appealing UI design.

  • Cigna: Lowest rated, hampered by repetitive steps to access plan details.

Based on the analysis, we identified three major areas for our design focus:

  1. Simplicity: Streamline the user journey by minimizing the number of steps required to access plan information and complete enrollment.

  2. Clarity: Present information in a clear, concise manner, using visual aids and intuitive layouts to enhance comprehension.

  3. Usability: Ensure the interface is intuitive and user-friendly, with a particular emphasis on mobile optimization.

User Surveys and Interviews

Once we clarified the value proposition, we moved forward to understanding the user experience. We sent out 18 surveys to existing users and conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with 5 international students.

Through the research, we identified users’ key challenges:

Evaluating Current Design

Based on the valuable feedback gathered from our user research, we identified several key problems with the current design of the Tigerless Health platform.

Design Principles

To address the challenges identified in our user research and align with our company's strategic goals, we developed a set of guiding design principles. These principles were crafted in collaboration with key stakeholders, including executives and the product team, to ensure a holistic approach to our redesign efforts.

The Redesign

New Home Page

Qualification, price, and plan features remain at users’ top of mind when assessing which plan to purchase.

New Plan Cards

Money & Features

Help users understand the monetary cost/benefits and features of each plan, thus promoting decision-making.

Clean Card Design: Helps users quickly locate important figures such as the amount of monthly payment, deductible, and coinsurance.

Hidden Information: Provides detailed explanations for complicated terms. Hidden by default to prevent information overload.

Highlighted Features: Helps users better compare different plans.

Results

The number of tickets submitted by potential customers on a daily basis to inquire about insurance plans increased by 21%, and 92% of the users preferred the new design.

With the redesign, users more quickly understood that insurance plans were offered according to their VISA status, and became more aware of the pros and cons associated with different monthly payment amounts. In general, users felt more confident to hit the purchase button after they became familiarized with the technical terms and monetary figures that used to confuse them. They also became more willing to reach out to the customer service team for help through phone calls when they had questions regarding plan purchases.

Areas for Future Improvements

While the current redesign has significantly enhanced the user experience for our primary audience—Chinese international students, who represent 80% of our existing users—it’s essential to consider how we can further improve our platform in future iterations.

One of the most pressing areas for enhancement is the incorporation of multilingual support. Although the design is primarily based on the Chinese language, expanding our offerings to include languages such as Hindi and Korean will allow us to better serve our diverse user base. This transition will present challenges, as text layout and design can vary dramatically across different languages. However, with a thoughtful design strategy, we can ensure that our platform remains user-friendly and culturally relevant.

Qualification

Help users select the insurance type they qualify for based on their VISA status (F-1, OPT, H1B, etc.)

Clean Layout: Helps users visually distinguish three types of insurance without distraction.

Highlighted Text: Helps users focus on plans offered for their VISA status immediately.

Display by Popularity: Place the most often selected insurance type at the top and the least at the bottom.

Speed

Help users search for suitable plans with minimal personal information

Minimal Input: Helps users see the price of available plans without having to fill in a bunch of personal information.

Help

Sticky Header: Encourages users to reach out to the customer service team when they have questions to be answered.