Tree-test participants
For estimate submission, 10 chose Make a claim and 9 chose Benefits. For tracking, 16 chose Benefits and 6 chose Overview—evidence that one hidden path would not match everyone’s mental model.
← Selected work
Canada Life · Released product
Making pre-treatment estimates easier to find and track
A research-led redesign that gave plan members a clear path to understand expected coverage before committing to care.
Project snapshot
Making a hidden, time-sensitive service visible
Requesting an estimate—also called a predetermination—was buried inside the claim experience. The work created a dedicated path for submitting and tracking estimates across responsive web.
- My role
- Lead UX Designer
- Users
- Group-benefits members planning healthcare expenses
- Scope
- Discovery synthesis, information architecture, flows, UI, handoff, and design QA
- Partners
- Product, research, content, business analysis, engineering, accessibility, and QA
- Status
- Released in the Canada Life group-benefits portal
The problem
Members could not find the service when they needed it
Before an important procedure, members needed to understand what their plan might cover. But the estimate option was embedded inside other claim categories, terminology was inconsistent, and the tracking path was unclear.
Design challenge
How might we make estimates and predeterminations easy to find, submit, and track—without requiring members to understand the organization’s internal terminology?
Evidence
Three sources revealed a findability problem
The redesign brought together behavioural data, information-architecture research, and unstructured customer feedback.
Recorded submissions
Adobe Analytics recorded 20,032 English and 4,145 French estimate submissions over a 13-month period, demonstrating meaningful demand for the service.
Qualtrics comments reviewed
Recurring themes included difficulty finding estimates, unclear terminology, and uncertainty about where to track a submitted request.
Information architecture
From a concealed route to deliberate entry points
The flow redesign separated estimates from unrelated claim categories and added access from locations supported by the tree-test findings.
Design exploration
Testing how the estimate entry point should communicate
Multiple combinations of content, controls, and component patterns were explored before the team selected a direction that balanced clarity with Salesforce component constraints.
Design decisions
Four changes made the service easier to understand
Use both “estimate” and “predetermination”
Customer language and insurance terminology appear together, reducing the burden of knowing the official term.
Create more than one credible entry point
Members can enter from Make a claim and the left navigation, reflecting the different locations revealed through tree testing.
Give estimates a dedicated landing page
Required documents, starting the request, and tracking prior submissions are gathered into one recognizable destination.
Reduce the primary journey
The redesigned structure reduced the documented flow from seven steps to four while preserving necessary insurance information.
Responsive experience
One hierarchy across desktop and mobile
The key actions—understanding requirements, starting an estimate, and finding submitted estimates—remain prominent across viewport sizes.
The interface also had to work within Salesforce Industries and Lightning Web Component constraints, so design decisions were reviewed with technical partners throughout delivery.
Experience in motion
Web and mobile walkthroughs
These recordings show the final flow across both responsive contexts.
Web view
Mobile view
Delivery
Carried from requirements through implementation
- 1Frame the requirementReview priorities and constraints with product and business analysis.
- 2Synthesize evidenceConnect research, analytics, feedback, and feasibility.
- 3Explore and alignIterate in Figma and review the direction with partners.
- 4Support deliveryHandoff, design reviews, accessibility review, QA, and end-to-end testing.
Outcome
A distinct, released estimate experience
documented reduction in steps
primary entry points aligned with research
responsive experience delivered to production
The source material does not include verified post-launch call-volume or satisfaction measurements, so those are not presented as quantified outcomes.
Reflection
Findability is part of the product—not a layer around it
A well-designed form cannot help members who never find it. This project showed why navigation, language, and tracking must be designed as part of the service itself.
Using several evidence sources also prevented one entry point from being treated as universally “obvious.” The final structure acknowledges that members approach the same task with different mental models.
Next project
Continue exploring the portfolio
Return to selected work to review the medical-claims redesign or the upcoming account-management case study.
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