Medica: Broker Portal
Fixing a fractured broker portal experience
Introduction
Medica is a nonprofit health insurance company serving individuals and employers across the Midwest. Nearly 90% of Medica’s business is acquired through brokers, making them a critical customer group. This project focused on improving Medica’s digital experience for brokers so they could more easily access the tools and information needed to support their clients.
Problem: The Broker experience was fragmented across three separate sites—Individual & Family, Commercial, and Medicare. Brokers had to sign in and out of each site to find what they needed, and the lack of a clear navigation system meant information was presented as long lists of links. This made it difficult and time-consuming for brokers to find the resources they needed to support their members.
Goal: The UX team aimed to create a more intuitive and engaging experience for brokers—making it easier for them to find relevant information, navigate Medica’s resources, and stay engaged with Medica.
Process: The project followed a phased approach, beginning with stakeholder alignment, internal interviews, and a review of existing research to understand broker needs and business goals. We then created an information architecture model—including a sitemap and new navigation—to improve organization, along with a supporting content strategy to increase findability. Finally, we established a creative vision and delivered UX and UI designs, ensuring quality and alignment through design QA.
Team: Executive Director of UX, UX Designer (Me), Project Manager, UI Designer and External Development Team
THE SOLUTION
Before the redesign, the Broker experience was fragmented across three separate sites—Individual & Family, Commercial, and Medicare. This led us to combine the 3 sites into 1 unified and dynamic portal so brokers could find the information that they were looking for.
Sitemaps: I reviewed the three existing sitemaps, and compared them together to see what was the same and what was different. I redesigned each sitemap individually, and then combined them into a single, unified sitemap. Creating a cohesive structure was challenging, but the client responded very positively, calling the new IA model, navigation, and sitemap “fantastic.”
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Templates: Next, I mapped page templates to the sitemap and developed wireframes for the most important pages. These wireframes were presented to the client, who appreciated the clear, structured approach.
Chatgpt: I wanted to see if Chatgpt could help me figure out the differences between each sitemap to speed up process, but I learned that Chatgpt was not very helpful in this task because it can't think and create a better sitemap so I proceeded with my own thinking rather than relying on AI for this task.
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Please click the external links below to see the full IA Model and wireframe presentations:
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Success
The client was very happy with the redesign and we continued our partnership with them on their next project: updating the member portal.
