Increasing Reward Engagement
Helping members stay healthier by making wellness rewards easier to understand and complete.
Employer-sponsored health plans often reward members for completing healthy activities such as annual wellness visits, preventive screenings, vaccinations, and other recommended care.
I led a comprehensive UX audit and content optimization initiative across more than 50 individual health actions, improving the consistency, clarity, and usability of the rewards experience across web and mobile platforms.
The project required balancing business rules, regulatory requirements, and evolving plan details while helping members clearly understand what actions they needed to take to earn rewards.
Overview
The Challenge
Each health action represented a unique experience with its own eligibility rules, timing, messaging, and completion requirements.
As benefit plans evolved throughout the year, the experience also needed to account for scenarios including:
Mid-year plan changes
Member eligibility updates
Termed coverage
Annual renewals
Incomplete or unavailable reward data
Error and exception states
Because the experience existed across multiple platforms and versions, maintaining consistency was just as important as designing individual screens.
My Role: Lead Content Designer
I partnered closely with product, legal, compliance, engineering, and content stakeholders to:
Audit more than 50 health action experiences
Improve UX writing and content clarity
Standardize interaction patterns
Refine entry points and navigation
Design notifications and system messaging
Review accessibility and health literacy
Support implementation across web and mobile experiences
Auditing at Scale
Rather than treating each health action independently, I evaluated the experience as a complete ecosystem.
This included identifying inconsistencies across:
Content and terminology
Information hierarchy
Interaction patterns
Status messaging
Visual presentation
Platform-specific experiences
The result was a more cohesive and predictable experience for members.
Writing for Clarity
Many health actions involved complex healthcare terminology that could be confusing or intimidating.
I rewrote content using plain-language principles to help members quickly understand:
What action they needed to complete
Why it mattered
When it was due
Whether they were eligible for a reward
What would happen next
Every piece of content was reviewed with accessibility, readability, and inclusivity in mind.
Designing for Change
Health benefits are rarely static.
The experience needed to gracefully support changing member circumstances throughout the year, including eligibility updates, benefit renewals, completed activities, and situations where rewards were no longer available.
Designing these edge cases helped ensure members received accurate, contextual guidance instead of generic messaging.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Because every reward experience intersected with healthcare policy and plan rules, I partnered closely with product, legal, compliance, engineering, and content teams to ensure every interaction balanced usability with regulatory requirements.
Design Approach
Outcome
The audit resulted in a more consistent, member-centered rewards experience across dozens of health actions, with standardized content patterns, clearer messaging, and improved guidance throughout the member journey.
By simplifying health-related language, refining edge-case experiences, and aligning interactions across web and mobile platforms, the experience became easier to navigate while continuing to meet complex business and compliance requirements.
Highlights
Audited and optimized 50+ health action experiences
Improved UX writing using plain-language and health literacy best practices
Standardized content and interaction patterns across web and mobile
Designed for complex member scenarios, including eligibility changes and plan renewals
Created accessible, compliant experiences through close collaboration with legal and cross-functional partners
Established scalable patterns to support future rewards experiences