UNITED HEALTHCARE
Case Study—
Minimizing Scroll Fatigue and UI Inconsistencies in a High-Volume Claims System
As Senior UX/UI Designer and UX Lead on the claims platform (FOX) at UnitedHealthcare, I led UX efforts to improve manual adjudication workflows for Medicare Supplement claims supporting AARP members. This work focused on reducing scroll fatigue, improving data comparability, and lowering cognitive load for claims examiners working outside auto-adjudication. The goal was not to change system logic, but to make critical claim review tasks faster, clearer, and lower risk through UI-level improvements.
(Roles)
UX Research
UX/UI Design
(Research Method)
User Surveys
1:1 User Interviews
(Tools)
Miro Board
Figma
Microsoft Forms
(AI-Assisted Research)
Dovetail
Otter AI
Co-Pilot
ChatGPT
The Challenge
Although auto adjudication processes ~98% of claims, the remaining 1–2% are routed to examiners for manual review. These complex cases are extremely high-value, and slowdowns have a direct financial and operational impact.
One of the highest-friction areas was the Duplicate Check workflow, where examiners compare a check received from a third-party system against possible matches within FOX.
The Problem
FOX replaced a legacy claims system but introduced usability issues that slowed examiners and increased frustration.
Key challenges included:
Misaligned data structures:
The third-party system displayed checks horizontally.
We displayed them vertically.Excessive scrolling and fragmented layouts
Inconsistent data presentation across systems
Inefficient use of space
High cognitive effort when comparing duplicate claims
Productivity loss in high-volume workflows
“There are many barriers that slow us down—especially errors and slowness between screens.”
— FOX Claims Examiner
Strategy
We launched a focused UX research initiative to understand examiner pain points and identify UI changes that could deliver immediate efficiency gains without backend changes.
The approach emphasized:
Observing real examiner workflows
Identifying repeat friction points
Prioritizing improvements aligned with business constraints
Research Approach (Condensed)
Screener survey to surface key issues
1:1 interviews with claims examiners and trainers
Thematic and sentiment analysis
Findings mapped directly to design opportunities
Key UX Improvements
The biggest blocker wasn’t just “too much scrolling.”
It was a mismatch between the mental model examiners used and the UI they were given.
Vertical data grouping by aligning with mental models for easier comparison
Reoriented data layouts to reduce scrolling
Reduced clutter by optimizing whitespace
Improved visual hierarchy for faster comparison
Reduced cognitive translation between systems
Impact
Improved review efficiency through reduced scroll fatigue
Lower cognitive load for high-volume examiners
Increased confidence during manual adjudication
Positive post-launch feedback validating UI-only improvements
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Research Objective
To identify and address workflow challenges within the claims application, improving efficiency and usability for claims examiners through a structured, evidence-based design process.
Research Goals
Identify the most impactful usability and workflow challenges facing claims examiners
Validate user feedback through qualitative and quantitative methods
Align UX findings with product, business, and technology priorities
Translate insights into actionable, design-ready recommendations
Surface opportunities beyond immediate fixes to inform future improvements
Screener Survey
Online survey distributed to claims examiners to assess overall experience and identify candidates for follow-up interviews
25 questions, ~9 minutes (Microsoft Forms)
1:1 User Interviews
In-depth interviews with claims examiners and application trainers to understand workflows, pain points, and edge cases
Stakeholder Collaboration
Ongoing consultation with product owners and business stakeholders to align findings with operational priorities
Analysis & Synthesis
Thematic analysis of survey and interview data
Issues categorized as defects, enhancements, or new opportunities
Findings mapped directly to the product backlog to support prioritization
Opportunity Mapping
Identification of near-term improvements and longer-term UX opportunities beyond the initial scope
Deliverables
Synthesized research insights with clear, actionable recommendations
Visual design proposals illustrating workflow and UI improvements
Executive and team-facing summaries to support decision-making and alignment
Deep Dive: UX Research
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Legacy proto-personas created by a previous UX team (2021) were used as a starting point for secondary research. Because FOX (claims application) had recently launched, their relevance to current user behaviors was uncertain.
To address this, I began validating the proto-personas by re-analyzing the original data and conducting interviews with product and business stakeholders. Gaps were identified where personas had been left incomplete, and additional persona definitions were developed to better reflect emerging user patterns.
This work established a foundation for evolving the proto-personas into fully validated user personas that more accurately represent current FOX users and inform ongoing design decisions.
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Once the UX team developed a working understanding of the FOX claims processing workflow, we designed a mixed-method survey to validate emerging insights. The questionnaire included a balance of quantitative and qualitative questions, ranging from straightforward task-based prompts to open-ended questions intended to surface sentiment and emotional friction.
The 24-question survey was distributed to approximately 140–150 claims examiners on the AARP distribution list. Eleven participants responded (≈7.9% response rate), providing directional quantitative signals and rich qualitative feedback.
Based on these responses, a subset of participants was selected for follow-up interviews to deepen understanding of workflows, pain points, and context—allowing the team to validate findings beyond the survey data alone.
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The UX team conducted 30-minute-long contextual (ethnographic) observation sessions with 17 users across multiple business areas to understand how claims processors interact with the FOX and COMPAS (admin & billing app) systems in real working conditions.
Using a “fly-on-the-wall” approach, we observed end-to-end task execution while asking targeted, in-context questions about specific workflows.
Application trainers shared established shortcuts, workarounds, and ideal “happy paths,” while also surfacing system limitations and recurring sources of frustration. These sessions provided critical insight into how work is actually performed—beyond documented processes or assumed behaviors. -
Following the initial research phase, the team conducted in-depth interviews with three participants to clarify ambiguous findings and explore specific workflow challenges in greater detail. Interview scripts were developed based on insights from the earlier survey, allowing the team to probe areas that required deeper context.
Each 30-minute session was conducted over a two-week period using a collaborative interview model. With participant consent, sessions were recorded and analyzed using Dovetail to support accurate capture and synthesis of feedback.
I moderated the interviews, guiding the discussion toward actionable insights. A UX colleague supported the sessions with development and accessibility expertise, while the UX manager provided business-level context to ensure findings aligned with organizational priorities.
Insights were synthesized using task, thematic, and sentiment analysis, and affinity mapping—transforming qualitative data into design-ready insights that informed strategic hypotheses.
AI-assisted analysis was used selectively to accelerate synthesis while maintaining human judgment and research rigor. -
To translate qualitative feedback into actionable insights, I used a structured analysis approach that combined task-level observation with thematic and sentiment-based synthesis.
Task Analysis
I examined the step-by-step workflows claims examiners followed to complete their work, identifying inefficiencies that directly affected productivity. This surfaced recurring friction points such as inconsistent tab navigation and redundant actions that disrupted focus and quota completion.Thematic Analysis
User feedback was grouped into core themes that revealed root causes of frustration, including system reliability issues, cognitive overload from poorly structured layouts, and data inconsistencies. These themes helped prioritize UI and workflow improvements aligned with both user needs and business goals.Sentiment Analysis
I assessed the emotional tone of feedback to understand how system behavior affected examiners beyond task completion. This highlighted elevated frustration and anxiety around errors and slowness, reinforcing the need to reduce cognitive strain and improve system confidence.Affinity Mapping
Findings were clustered into visual groups to reveal patterns across roles and workflows. Issues were prioritized by frequency and severity, enabling the team to focus on changes with the highest operational and experiential impact.Together, this synthesis transformed raw qualitative data into clear, design-ready priorities—balancing functional efficiency with the human realities of high-volume, high-stakes work.
Personas
Following interviews, contextual observation, and survey analysis, I synthesized findings into personas representing claims adjusters and processors, informing a duplicate check redesign grounded in real-world workflows.
Key Visual & Usability Themes Reported by Claims Processors for the New Update
Themes represent recurring feedback patterns across examiner responses, illustrating which aspects of the redesigned Dupe Check screen are providing the most value.
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Improved perceived performance by addressing load times, reducing error conditions, and optimizing data flow where possible—helping stabilize high-volume examiner workflows.
UI / UX Redesign
Streamlined the claims review experience by:Introducing consistent CTA shortcuts and predictable interaction patterns
Improving tab navigation support (used exclusively by over half of examiners)
Replacing fixed-width tables with responsive layouts to reclaim screen real estate and reduce horizontal scrolling
Enhancing text contrast and font sizing to improve readability and scanability
Feedback Integration
User and stakeholder feedback was continuously incorporated throughout design iterations, with high-fidelity mockups guiding development and refinement.Training & Communication Improvements
Supported adoption through regular update sessions and clearer training materials, improving awareness of changes and reducing uncertainty during rollout
Legacy Claim System Slowly Phased Out
Claim examiners had long relied on UPCS—a third-party claims services tool that presented duplicate checks in a horizontal, terminal-style format—establishing a familiar mental model for comparison. As UPCS began to be phased out, an early internal replacement introduced a vertically oriented table to align with existing UI patterns, but this created unnecessary cognitive friction given the volume and importance of duplicate checks. Our team redesigned the experience to restore a horizontal, side-by-side layout, preserving that established mental model and enabling faster, more confident duplicate claim evaluation with minimal cognitive disruption.
Duplicate Claim Check with New Horizontal View Matches Legacy Claim System
Results and Impact: Efficiency Gains
Examiners could now:
Compare data faster
Maintain context without losing their place
Reduce total clicks and scroll behaviors
Accuracy Improvements
By aligning FOX with the third-party system:
Misreads dropped
False matches reduced
Decisions were made with greater confidence
User Satisfaction
Examiners described the new layout as:
“More intuitive.”
“Finally matches how we work.”
“Night and day compared to before.”
Organizational Value
Supported a high-revenue AARP Med Supp line of business
Strengthened trust in UX
Demonstrated value during a cycle when UX requests were at risk of reprioritization
Helped create a pattern library for future FOX enhancements