Overview > Projects > Product Reconception - 2023

Product Reconception

Where do I begin? Have you ever peered over your doctor’s shoulder as he or she enter notes from your visit? Have you glimpsed the pitiless, crammed-in, overwhelming excuse for a user experience these diligent professionals grapple with daily? AI and ambient technology may help with data entry nowadays, but doctors will always need to review, analyze, compare, and edit medical records and, as of 2024, little has changed. This is the story of how I insisted on being part of the solution — not the problem.

UX Design I rendered for this project

Designing in the Paleolithic Era of UX

The year 2005 was a different time. Described in Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond (O’Reilly, 2015), as a time when “many companies employed a one-step process called ‘Code HTML.’ Everyone wanted to jump right in and build the site. People had no patience for research or strategy.”

Such was the context in our industry for my team on-site at Humana HQ in Louisville, Kentucky. The client expected to see results immediately and sketches or diagrams wouldn’t do. Which meant the user interface I was designing and prototyping would come to drive every major decision about the product’s ultimate capability.

result

This project was a huge success, earning our team an award from Humana and my employer repeat business. Here's how we did it.

Information Architecture …

This screen became the focal point for the majority of this project’s IA thinking – the kind that is now more commonly approached with research and strategy. We had skipped right to design and implementation. Getting this page to deliver on all the functionality it implied would put us across the finish-line for a 1.0 release.

The fact that it all worked out was testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone on my team.

A little luck never hurts, either.

Visual Design (and Theme) …

Everyone involved in this project agreed that the metaphor I chose early on to unify the overall concept was crucial. What does it look like when people are invited to coordinate their voices? How can we describe it in a way anyone could relate to?

A choral performance, I thought. Led by a conductor, of course. Which informed every creative decision I made about the application’s logo, tag-line, and decorative imagery.

One Humana, One Voice.