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Pulse Plus

An insurance giant needed to explore new health tracking technologies

Northwestern Mutual wanted to track the health of its 5M+ insurance policyholders in a more frequent, cost-effective way than yearly in-office medical exams. But new health tech is notoriously complex, error-prone, and legally fraught. So, in order to study how its target market responded to being monitored by modern health-tracking technologies, its incubator launched a trial product: an app that offered consumers a 360ยบ health overview by merging the data from fitness wearables with the results from home health test kits.

Tasks
  • Project Management
  • Content Creation
  • UX Design
  • Visual UI Design
  • Print Design

Designing for broad appeal

To ensure that the trial had a representative sample, the marketing funnel had to convert recruits of every age, gender, class, and ethnicity.

I segmented them by common health motivators—fitness, sexual health, and age-related disease—and wrote homepage text addressing each, using the free health test kit as a rewards-based incentive.

Speeding onboarding

All startups face challenges in increasing onboarding conversions…but health trials face extra ones. I had to collect enough medical history—in a non-threatening way—to screen out prospects who didn’t fit the study’s target and exit them in a way that made them still want to become customers later. Then, I had to clear data privacy laws—like CCPA—to ensure that all questions and consent form UX patterns were legally compliant.

Making health a habit

The Web app combined users’ fitness tracker data and health test kit results in a dashboard that gave a 360° health overview.

Screenshot of sequential message

Sequential messages

created a positive feedback loop by encouraging users to complete tasks that give them more data.

The visual hierarchy

prioritized frequently updated biomarkers over stable ones to keep the dashboard attention-worthy.

Screenshot of kit tracker

The kit tracker

notified users of kit arrivals and results. I based the time projections on prototype kit delivery times.

Future-proof instructions

The trial studied how users felt about collecting body fluids, which fluid collection types were easiest, and ways to reduce errors. So, the fluids studied—and their collection instructions—would change regularly.

The print materials

included a card in the test kit with a QR code linking to more comprehensive (and easily-editable) online instructions to make it easier for us to tweak the body fluid collection methods.

The online instructions

for each fluid collection method had to evolve, as our lab partner was still refining the kits. I wrote the text and created images from CAD diagrams and my photos of prototypes.

Results

Pulse Plus saved Northwestern Mutual countless dollars

The trial product gave Northwestern Mutual the data and confidence to move without risking its budget or existing customers. Further, it enabled the company to test new tech without the legal and administrative burdens of a new in-house program.

Knowing which fluid collection methods users preferred, which ones were least error-prone, and how to message them would save both materials and time when it came time to implement a program under Northwestern Mutual’s own brand.

cohorts

studied in the first year

tests

per participant

weeks

to launch user registration drive

See this project