Building AXA's wellbeing app
Client: AXA Health & Lovedby Design
March 2020 - March 2022
Project
Transforming Preventative Health: AXA Health's Wellbeing App
Led the end-to-end design and development of AXA Health's wellbeing app, transforming their service from reactive insurance provider to proactive health partner. The app launched successfully within 12 months, establishing a new digital ecosystem that increased customer engagement and positioned AXA as an innovator in preventative health.
Challenge
AXA Health aimed to help people bring out their best selves and move beyond their current role as an insurance provider. However, the health and wellbeing market was highly competitive and saturated. To differentiate in this crowded field, wellbeing products needed to offer greater personalisation, expertise, and behaviour change support—all at an affordable cost.
Key Obstacles
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Creating a unique position in the competitive wellbeing landscape
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Delivering affordable, personalized, and expert-led services
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Converting complex health journeys into simple, engaging digital experiences
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Balancing clinical expertise with user-friendly design
My Role & Approach
As Director of Product Design, I led a cross-functional team through a human-centered design process, embedding this methodology within AXA Health's organisation.
Leadership Responsibilities:
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Managed design team and system development from concept to launch
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Created and maintained design operations framework for consistency
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Facilitated collaboration between clinical experts, product, and technology teams
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Mentored graduate designers while maintaining design quality standards
Defining the User Journeys & Scope
We kicked off by picking the top 5 out of 14 possible journeys to focus on, with the whole team (11 of us) voting based on 12 criteria.
Next, we ran 5 design sprints, each tackling one of those journeys. We really dug into what our users needed and faced, chatting with experts and folks with real experience, checking out what competitors offer, and listening to feedback from potential users.
We found that users really care about trust, personalization, motivation, progress, affordability, and social connections.
So, we set our goals for the app: push for healthy habit changes, offer personalised tips, help users track their goals, and provide info to help everyone feel empowered about their health.
We chose to focus our first version of the app on improving mental health, aiming to show how we can make a real difference in wellbeing through the mind-body connection.
Design sprints and journey explorations
We ran five design sprints to explore each journey as a proposed service
Design sprints became our guiding light as we embarked on exploring each prioritised journey. We engaged with experts, individuals with lived experiences, and potential competitors to gain diverse perspectives. This iterative and collaborative process enabled us to refine our solutions and incorporate valuable feedback along the way.
Service Concepts
We created various service concepts during the ideation sessions of the 2-week-sprints. We tested these ideas with potential users at the end of each sprint and collated the feedback in one large repository.
Setting a customer experience vision
Creating a CX vision was key to changing how we offer products and services. This vision helped us aim high and show why our goals matter to customers.
We got to grips with what AXA wants for customer wellbeing, how users interact with our stuff, mapped out the whole user journey under this vision, and figured out what we need from partners to make it happen.
Our guide was the "Signature Journey," our beacon for the ideal customer experience over 3 years. It tells a story about our main user, Emma, focusing on her need for support through different parts of her life. This story motivates us internally to meet AXA's high standards and promises to keep Emma engaged and supported, making her app experience smooth and relevant every step of the way.
Feedback loops
In our app design, we paid close attention to feedback loops to enhance the user experience and promote positive behavior change. By tracking daily and weekly activities, users could gain valuable insights into their progress, fostering motivation and encouraging the adoption of healthier habits.
Drawing inspiration from the nudge theory, we strategically incorporated feedback loops that reinforced positive behaviors. This included timely reminders and personalised recommendations based on individual user data, creating a tailored experience that guided users towards their wellness goals. By leveraging feedback loops, we aimed to empower users to make informed choices, stay motivated, and experience ongoing progress on their health and wellbeing journeys.
Identfying system boundaries
While we initially set boundaries for our app, it became evident that they needed to evolve as we progressed. We recognized the importance of integrating our app with external systems, such as fitness trackers, health databases, and social media platforms, to provide users with comprehensive and relevant information.
Regular meetings with the Technology team allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of how these integrations could be achieved, ensuring a seamless user experience and access to valuable data from various sources. By expanding the system boundaries and considering these interfaces, we aimed to enhance the functionality and usefulness of our app in delivering a holistic health and wellbeing experience.
Product Features
Understanding the interaction between components and their integration with external systems was crucial. By focusing on the service architecture and continuously iterating it, we ensured that changes made to one component would have a positive impact on the overall user experience. This holistic approach allowed us to create a seamless and interconnected system, where each component played a vital role in supporting users on their health and wellbeing journeys.
Based on our customer experience strategy and vision, we prioritized a specific set of product features for the MVP launch:
Designing UI and UX
From the early stages of our service design sprints, we began creating concept wireframes to bring our ideas to life. We iterated on these wireframes during both the early and later production stages, refining our designs based on user feedback and internal team input. As part of this process, we also crafted brand assets and visual designs that aligned with the desired look and feel of our initial concepts.
Throughout the journey, our wireframes, branding, visual aesthetics, and interface designs underwent numerous changes over the course of a year. These iterations were crucial in ensuring that we captured the essence of our users' needs and preferences. The constant collaboration and feedback from users and internal teams helped us refine our designs and bring them closer to perfection.
It was only after launching the Beta version of the app that our design system truly began to take shape. Achieving consistency in our design elements and user interface became a focal point, allowing us to create a cohesive and seamless experience for our users. This iterative approach, driven by continuous user feedback, enabled us to refine our designs and ultimately deliver a user-friendly and visually appealing app that met the needs of our target audience.
Personalisation
Achieving personalisation presented a significant challenge
Providing personal recommendations carried potential liabilities for the health insurance company. Initially, we devised a system where users would answer questions, enabling us to assess their health conditions, preferences, current state, and goals. An algorithm would then generate a personalised plan, complete with plan tracking and tailored recommendations.
However, we encountered several obstacles in this approach. Firstly, developing an intelligent model or algorithm capable of assessing multiple aspects of wellbeing and generating personalised plans proved to be a costly endeavour. Additionally, as a health insurance company, assuming the liability of health-related recommendations without involving clinical experts raised significant concerns.
Furthermore, managing data privacy, diagnostics, and evaluative tests required integrating third-party services, which added complexity and increased costs.
To address these challenges, we shifted our approach to pre-set behaviour change programmes. Each programme focused on a specific change, such as practising meditation basics over a two-week period or adopting healthier eating habits for a month. Although we still implemented digital personal assessments, they were loosely connected to the programmes. This meant that the assessments did not directly tailor a personalised plan or provide specific recommendations.
By adopting this approach, we struck a balance between personalisation, cost-effectiveness, and data privacy. Users could still benefit from the tailored programmes while mitigating potential risks associated with offering direct personalised recommendations. Our primary focus remained on empowering individuals to make positive behaviour changes within a structured and supportive framework.
Iterative development and continuous improvement
Our app design and development followed an iterative approach, allowing us to refine and enhance the user experience over time. We conducted discovery sessions for new service propositions concurrently with app production, ensuring that we had a clear roadmap for future iterations. This approach allowed us to stay ahead by planning the next steps 2-3 months in advance.
After the first year, we launched the beta version of the app to a select group of AXA employees, offering them the core features and functionalities. We actively sought their feedback over the next 1.5 years, incorporating their insights to improve the core features and introduce new programs and functionality.
By leveraging analytics and user insights, we identified areas for enhancement and additional features. This data-driven approach enabled us to continuously refine the app, ensuring that it met the evolving needs and expectations of our users. Through ongoing iterations and a commitment to continuous improvement, we strived to deliver an app that provided maximum value and a seamless user experience.
Collaboration and Partnerships
We actively sought collaborations with healthcare start-ups, diagnostic services, and other wellbeing apps to enhance our services. These partnerships allowed us to integrate additional functionalities and offer value-added services to our users, expanding the breadth and depth of our app.
We also collaborated with AXA's physicians, clinical psychologists, fitness experts, and nutrition specialists throughout the entire journey. Their expertise and input helped ensure the credibility and accuracy of our content, aligning it with evidence-based practices.
Through these collaborative efforts, we built a dynamic ecosystem that combined the strengths of various stakeholders. This approach allowed us to deliver a trusted app that met the diverse needs of our users, providing them with valuable resources for their health and wellbeing journey.
Key Takeaways
The design and development of the health and wellbeing app presented in this case study exemplify the power of a user-centric and systems-thinking approach. By understanding the complex landscape of health and wellbeing, prioritising key journeys, and incorporating user feedback, we were able to create a transformative app that meets the diverse needs of our users. The emphasis on personalization, continuous improvement, and collaboration with healthcare partners has positioned the app as a trailblazer in the industry.
