The design process behind Oscar’s latest mobile app update | Oscar Rx | hioscar Blog | Oscar
The design process behind Oscar’s latest mobile app update
A behind-the-scenes look at Oscar’s latest mobile app revamp, from concept to code.
Behind the ScenesOur Culture
6 min read
Ashley Taylor Anderson
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At Oscar, our mission to bring health insurance technology into the 21st century started on day one. One of our top priorities is to provide an intuitive, member-friendly product that gives members access to their health information anytime, anywhere.
Since we launched in 2013, we’ve learned that to build the best experience, you also have to build the smartest one. Developing a product that addresses our diverse member base and uses the latest technology standards requires constant iteration and evolution.
This week, we rolled out a substantial app redesign for our iOS and Android mobile app. The updated app makes it easier to access messaging, plan information, and other key features.
A walkthrough of the revamped app
The app redesign took a lot of exploration, prototyping, testing, and development to arrive at a solution that was most intuitive for members. Here’s what went into the latest update from a design, user experience, and development perspective.
Why redesign the app, and why now?
Regy Perlera, Product Designer at Oscar, contextualizes the redesign this way:
“The previous version of the Oscar app launched over two years ago. Back then, Oscar was in a very different place as a company. We had fewer members, a quarter of the features we have now, and a smaller team working on the app. Technology and design best practices have also changed a lot since the iPhone 5 days. A few years ago, mobile phone screens were smaller, and consumer expectations for how apps should look and work were different. Coding standards and libraries have also grown up quite a bit in the past couple of years.”
Additionally, Oscar’s visual brand style has evolved substantially since 2015, which led to the app looking noticeably different than the current website and marketing materials. The team wanted to update the look and feel of the app to align with the current visual style while still exemplifying Oscar’s design values of functional minimalism (opens in new tab) and progressive disclosure (opens in new tab).
Goals of the redesign
According to Regy, there were several objectives for the mobile app redesign.
“Helping members discover features in an easy way was the main goal,” says Regy. “We wanted to make it easier for people to browse the app, navigate from feature to feature with as little friction as possible, and access all their health information in one place. We also wanted to drive usage of important features, like messaging with Concierge, that weren’t being utilized as much as we want them to be.”
Revised information architecture for redesigned app
A related goal was to rethink the app’s information architecture to accommodate a more robust feature set. “There’s a lot of new things we’re excited to roll out over the next year, and the original structure was too tight. We needed more room to grow,” says Regy.
The last goal focused on usability. “We also wanted to address the accessibility and usability issues that members raised to our Concierge teams,” Regy says. “The new app features larger font sizes and darker colors with higher contrast to improve readability.”
An overview of the app redesign process
While the digital member experience team (known as DMX inside Oscar’s walls) spearheaded the redesign process, it took a team of stakeholders, members, designers, and engineers to bring the revamped app to life.
The process started with Adam Karnas, Senior Manager of Product Design, who conducted a number of internal reviews. He chatted with Oscar’s internal teams to get a sense of where the key member friction points were with the existing app, and used online review and support tickets to gather direct member feedback.
After extrapolating the key issues, Regy and Adam put together a full design brief that outlined the project goals, stakeholder comments, user stories, and key deliverable dates for the project. They reviewed it with the engineering team and refined their approach based on the conversation.
Then concepting began. Regy and Adam originally developed three different versions of the app to test – one with very minimal options (Option A), one with lots of options, (Option C) and one with a curated number of options (Option B). They ran all of these concepts by engineering up front to get their perspective on the technical lift and scope for each version.
Three original prototype options (A, B, and C from left to right) for the Oscar app redesign
Next, Regy and Adam conducted a preliminary round of user testing with Oscar members. They showed them all three prototypes and got feedback over the course of an hour.
“The members who came in weren’t fanboys and fangirls. They gave us very critical feedback, but they’re also cheering for us. Some people who came in were very familiar with the app, and some hardly used it at all. This helped us create a solution that would work for everyone,” says Adam.
Based on the first user test, they identified Option B version as the winner. Regy and Adam then refined the interactions, navigation, and visual design of this prototype, and made sure everything would work consistently across iOS and Android devices.
They then held a second round of user interviews with a different set of members to validate the final design direction. “We were especially looking to see how members responded to the illustrations. In general, they were well received. We continued to refine the care search icons so that the visual metaphors were clearer,” says Regy.
After some final polishing and tweaking, Regy and Adam turned over the designs to the engineering team to begin working on the code.
The look and feel of the final app redesign
The developers refactored the entire codebase into React Native so going forward, they can maintain a single app version that works across iOS and Android devices.
Key learnings
The DMX team learned a lot throughout the redesign process about design and development best practices. Some of the key takeaways were as follows:
Cyclical IA > linear IA. Moving from a linear to cyclical IA empowers members to get to the information they care about with less effort.
Progressive reveal is better than more options. Members preferred a more progressive flow of information with fewer options at each stage.
Naming matters. Standard industry terminology such as Health Survey isn’t intuitive for members. Where possible, it’s best to use explanatory, relatable language instead.
Grouping information helps. Consolidating related health plan information into a single tab was a win with members.
Personalization works. Members responded well to real photos of their Concierge team members and a geotargeted background illustration.
One codebase rules them all. Refactoring the entire app in React Native, while it took more time than simply updating the existing code, will give developers more time in the future to build new features instead of maintaining multiple versions of the app.
Future improvements
With the newly revamped Oscar app, there’s room to add new features and enhance existing ones. In the coming months, the team will be rolling out additional updates that help members save preferred doctors, medical centers, and Concierge team members in one place, and make informed decisions about which doctors to see and when.
The Oscar app will continue to grow and change over time. Stay tuned for more updates soon!
