challenge

Surge of Users Slows HealthCare.gov to a Crawl

Within hours of launching HealthCare.gov, over 250,000 visitors inundated the site, five times more than anticipated, causing a total system crash. Of the hundreds of thousands who attempted, only six users managed to complete their applications and select a health insurance plan on the first day of the initial open enrollment period. Essential functions like account creation and plan applications suffered severe compromises, rendering the platform virtually inoperable for the consumers it aimed to serve.

solution

40 Million Users Enroll Through Redesigned HealthCare.gov

As a UX and UI designer, I was responsible for enhancing the user experience by incorporating consistent design patterns and creating responsive components to maximize site performance while ensuring compliance with WCAG guidelines. The redesign of site templates and streamlined information architecture eliminated unnecessary information and provided users with logical and straightforward navigation that facilitated decision-making.

These improvements were critical to HealthCare.gov's success, evidenced by over 460,000 users enrolling in a plan during the first week of the second enrollment period and over 40 million successful enrollments since the site's launch.