ENTERPRISE HEALTHCARE UX RESEARCH | MASSACHUSETTS HEALTH CONNECTOR | HEURISTIC EVALUATION
Massachusetts Health Connector Heuristic Evaluation
Improving healthcare enrollment experiences through large-scale expert review and research-driven design recommendations.
350K+
Residents Impacted
134
Usability Violations
63
High Severity Issues
4
Expert Evaluators
Research Approach
Expert Review
Led three evaluators who independently reviewed the platform using heuristic principles.
Task Analysis
Seven critical user journeys were assessed across enrollment and account workflows.
Heuristic Framework
Selected and applied Monkman (2013) heuristic principles to guide evaluation.
Issue Prioritization
Findings were aggregated, rated by severity, and prioritized into actionable recommendations.
Project Overview
The Massachusetts Health Connector serves as the health insurance marketplace for Massachusetts residents, families, and small businesses. The project focused on evaluating the platform's usability, learnability, and utility to identify actionable improvements across key enrollment and account management workflows.
Role: Lead UX Researcher
Team Size: 4 UX Researchers Method: Multi-Evaluator Heuristic Evaluation
Framework: Monkman (2013) Heuristics
Client: Massachusetts State Government
Stakeholders: Optum State Government Solutions, Optum Insight Tech Engineering
Scope: 7 Critical User Workflows
My Contributions
Led a four-person UX research team through a multi-evaluator heuristic evaluation of the Massachusetts Health Connector platform.
Led and coordinated four UX researchers throughout the evaluation process
Consolidated and prioritized 134 usability violations based on severity and business impact
Facilitated stakeholder alignment and evaluation planning with Product Management partner
Developed actionable recommendations to improve navigation, accessibility, workflow visibility, and error recovery
Developed evaluator training and calibration materials to ensure consistency across reviews
Conducted heuristic evaluations and synthesized findings across evaluators
Presented findings and strategic recommendations to cross-functional stakeholders
Why This Problem Mattered
350K+
Massachusetts residents impacted
The Health Connector supports critical healthcare enrollment and account management workflows. Usability barriers in these workflows could increase user effort, reduce completion confidence, and make it harder for residents to access coverage-related information.
PAIN POINT
Users encountered navigation and task recovery barriers across enrollment workflows.
OPPORTUNITY
Improve usability, learnability, and content clarity across high-impact user journeys.
BUSINESS RISK
Unresolved usability issues could affect enrollment completion, user confidence, and service accessibility.
Research Approach
Expert Review
Led three evaluators who independently reviewed the platform using heuristic principles.
Task Analysis
Seven critical user journeys were assessed across enrollment and account workflows.
Heuristic Framework
Selected and applied Monkman (2013) heuristic principles to guide evaluation.
Issue Prioritization
Findings were aggregated, rated by severity, and prioritized into actionable recommendations.
Evaluation Process
A collaborative heuristic evaluation conducted with four researchers, focusing on critical enrollment workflows and high-impact user journeys.
This structured evaluation framework ensured consistency across four evaluators and transformed usability findings into prioritized, actionable design improvements.
Understanding Critical User Journeys
The evaluation focused on seven high-priority workflows, including eligibility, enrollment, account management, and application submission.
Building Alignment Before Evaluation
The Optum State Government Solution had received feedback that the platform was difficult to navigate and that users struggled to complete important enrollment-related tasks. I met with the Product Manager to understand the business context, define critical workflows, obtain sandbox access and dummy credentials, and prepare the research team for evaluation.
STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT
Clarified business goals, usability concerns, and evaluation scope with the Product Manager.
TASK DEFINITION
Defined seven critical workflows across eligibility, enrollment, shopping, account management, and application submission.
EVALUATOR PREPARATION
Mapped user journeys and trained three additional evaluators to ensure consistent task execution, heuristic interpretation, and severity ratings.
Critical journey map showing the seven workflows reviewed during the heuristic evaluation.
Key Research Insights
The heuristic evaluation revealed systemic usability issues across enrollment, account management, shopping, and support workflows.
Accessibility and Feedback Gaps Limited User Control
Users could not adjust font size across the platform, creating accessibility barriers for residents with varied literacy, vision, and digital fluency needs. The platform also lacked a global feedback mechanism, making it difficult for users to report in-context concerns or confusion while completing critical enrollment tasks.
Dense Content Increased Cognitive Load
Several workflows relied on long text-heavy pages, including the Review & Sign experience and other consent-related screens. These dense content blocks made it easier for users to miss required actions, overlook key information, or abandon the process before completing enrollment.
Navigation Patterns Reduced Error Recovery
Users lacked clear progress indicators and reliable back-navigation during the My Eligibility journey. This created a rigid workflow where users had limited ability to move backward, correct earlier information, or understand where they were within the enrollment process.
Shopping and Account Workflows Needed Clearer Interaction Cues
The shopping and account areas showed inconsistent labels, unclear button behavior, missing visual feedback, and limited support for comparison. Recommendations included improving button labels, supporting side-by-side plan comparison, clarifying selected states, adding icons to contact information, and making alert information more visible.
Severity Analysis
The team identified 134 heuristic violations and categorized them by severity to support prioritization.
Violations by severity across the evaluated workflows.
63
Mild Issues
45
Moderate Issues
26
Severe Issues
Task Analysis
The My Eligibility journey generated the highest number of identified usability concerns.
Summary of heuristic violations by task.
HIGHEST-RISK JOURNEY
My Eligibility had the highest number of usability concerns.
ENROLLMENT FRICTION
Application and eligibility tasks created significant user effort.
PRIORITIZATION
Findings helped the team focus recommendations on the highest-impact workflows.
Deep Dive Finding 1: My Eligibility Workflow
Problem
Users could not easily move backward and forward between completed sections, limiting error recovery during enrollment.
Severity
Severe
Recommendation
Provide users with more freedom to move backward and forward between screens, and add subtasks to the wizard task bar.
My Eligibility workflow screenshot showing navigation and task recovery issues.
Deep Dive Finding 2: Review & Sign Experience
Problem
The page contained walls of text and limited white space, making the experience overwhelming.
Severity
Severe
Recommendation
Slice the page into smaller sections and turn consent requirements into clearer actions on each page.
Review & Sign screenshot showing dense content and limited white space.
Design Recommendations Summary
Recommendations were prioritized to improve navigation, readability, task recovery, and workflow clarity.
IMPROVE NAVIGATION
Support backward and forward movement through completed workflow steps.
REDUCE CONTENT DENSITY
Break long text-heavy pages into smaller, more digestible sections.
INCREASE ERROR RECOVERY
Give users clearer ways to correct mistakes without restarting workflows.
IMPROVE WORKFLOW VISIBILITY
Use progress indicators and subtasks to help users understand where they are in the process.
Implemented Design Changes
Research findings and recommendations informed later design improvements across key Health Connector workflows.
Address Validation Experience
BEFORE
Legacy Address Search Experience
Legacy experience created ambiguity when confirming address matches.
AFTER
Redesigned Address Confirmation Experience
Updated modal improved clarity, selection confidence, and confirmation flow.
My Account Dashboard
BEFORE
Legacy My Account Experience
Legacy account experience made it harder to quickly identify next steps and key account information.
AFTER
Redesigned Dashboard Experience
Updated dashboard improved information hierarchy and surfaced next-step guidance.
Research Validation
Quantitative Evidence
134 — Usability violations identified
50 — Moderate-to-severe issues
45 — Moderate issues
26 — Severe issues
7 — Critical workflows evaluated
4 — Expert evaluators
Qualitative Evidence
Navigation barriers reduced error recovery
Content-heavy screens increased cognitive load
Long workflows created unnecessary friction
Users required clearer guidance throughout enrollment tasks
Outcomes & Business Impact
350K+
Residents Impacted
134
Issues Identified
50
Moderate + Severe Issues
7
Critical Workflows
4
Evaluators
1
Unified Recommendation Set
Reflection
What Worked
Using multiple expert evaluators increased issue coverage and helped the team identify usability patterns across complex healthcare workflows.
What I Learned
Heuristic evaluation is most valuable when findings are tied to concrete workflows, severity levels, and actionable design recommendations.
What I Would Improve
I would pair the heuristic review with usability testing and mobile-specific evaluation to validate whether the recommendations improve real user task completion.
Led, designed, and researched by Natalie Chiang