The online pharmacy website used to be a cumbersome experience that forced users to navigate multiple webpages to manage their prescriptions. The business recognized needs for improvement, so the team launched a minimum viable product (MVP) to 10% of the user population. It solved the problem of a fragmented web experience with a comprehensive prescriptions list where people could find all of their medications in one place. It received an overwhelming positive reception.
"Love the new site. I can now go to one page to see all my active medications. This can be printed and presented to a new doctor. Thank you!"
While the MVP was undeniably valuable, there were performance setbacks that couldn't be ignored. The most critical of them were the refill and renewal metrics, which had performed better before the MVP rollout. The team saw this as concerning and wanted to prioritize addressing it before considering scaling the product with more features.
The risk of not addressing these problems and understanding user needs meant continued confusion, frustration, and inaccessibility among people who relied on the digital pharmacy service for prescription refills. Not only that, it added negative impact and cost to business and healthcare outcomes. For added context, in 2021, out of 21 million prescription fills initiated by patients, 17 million of those fills were initiated digitally (82%), which was a striking perspective of how dependent people were on digital tools to get the medications they needed, especially as there were over 60 million eligible digital pharmacy users.
"How might we better guide users to complete their refill and renewal tasks, leading to higher rates of conversion and better medication adherence?"
I reviewed the current state of the MVP, focusing on refill and renewal experiences to understand where and why those capabilities fell short against their benchmarks. I had an idea why.
My content partner, Jacob, and I teamed up to tackle the problems around refill and renewal experiences. We had reasons to believe why our recommendations and enhancements would lead members take confident action, resulting in more favorable outcomes.
Fast follow refill and renewal enhancements proved to be influential. We tracked a 5.2% increase in refill conversions and a 3.9% increase in renewals against benchmarks, indicating a change in direction that was positive enough for the business to move forward with scaling the product with more features for more users.
"How might we help users better manage their prescription lists, ensuring that the experience is more relevant and useful for their needs?"
Despite how successful of a concept and direction the MVP was, it was minimal and limited. It revealed opportunities where the product could grow. There was plenty of customer feedback and patterns found, for example, expressing demands for more features to better navigate and manage prescription lists. We were ready to listen, learn, and deliver on the most common feature requests and experiences.
"I now see my entire family which makes it more difficult when trying to find prescriptions that I want to refill for just myself."
"You still list a script ready for refill I no longer use. But I don't see a way to delete it. It's been a year since I used it."
The customer feedback I encountered and collected focused largely on challenges with finding and managing prescription information. Because I was curious about what other competitors were doing, I evaluated their sites. What I immediately discovered were shared and conventional patterns across: Search, Filter, Sort, and Categories. Features were also consistently placed in side panels, horizontal bars, or modals for intuitive navigation.
Moderated usability research. After exploring various possibilities with wireframes referencing competitor sites, I narrowed my prototype explorations down to two for usability research, focused on Search, Filter, Sorting, and Archiving capabilities. My research partner and I planned a moderated usability test to learn and understand feature desirability, usefulness, and usability. Here's what we learned:
I designed an experience with familiar tools that could give users more confidence and control to better manage their prescriptions and complete tasks. Research provided insightful takeaways such that while many features were designed with good intentions, they weren’t always used by people. For example, 'filtering by pharmacy' was a nice thought but very unlikely to be used. Here's what 60 million digitally eligible users of the pharmacy had access to:
The prescription list dynamically corresponded to a string of letters or prescription numbers entered in the search field by users, making it quick and effortless to narrow down or pinpoint medications within prescription lists.
The "Filter by Member" and "Sort" features let users tailor their prescription lists, making it easier to manage medications for themselves or their family members. Users could now filter by a member and sort by relevance, alphabetical order, or recent orders to suit their needs and preferences.
Category filters grouped similar prescription types like refills and renewals for quick and effortless selection. Plus, it enabled discoverability of plan-recommended benefits and opportunities for cost savings and convenience home delivery options.
Archiving and unarchiving was a highly requested feature among users. It allowed people to organize their prescription list and focus on medications that mattered most to them and store away irrelevant ones.
After the MVP updates and new feature enhancements, the product remained as the most visited experience in the digital pharmacy, reinforcing its value for users and the business.
New feature enhancements I delivered - Search, Filter, Sort, and Archive - had varied utilization rates. What was evident was that these tools improved discoverability and streamlined navigation, leading to a better self-service experience for users to manage their prescriptions.
"I didn't like the site the last time I got on. I don't remember why, just confusing is all I remember. Had no problems this time getting to my refills and understanding the ordering of them."
"Thank you for adding the ability to filter by member."
