Case Studies

Mike Rapp

Mike Rapp

How I led the design of an affordable, best-in-class virtual healthcare product—at the scale of Walmart

Mobile

Desktop

Strategy

Research

API Integrations

Information Architecture

Healthcare

Why Telehealth? Why Walmart?

Walmart's goal was to bring quality and affordable primary healthcare to rural America.

But Walmart's 51 state-of-the-art healthcare clinics were only available in five states—making quality healthcare inaccessible to customers who don't live in the neighborhood. And that's where Walmart Virtual Urgent Care comes in.

As Principal Designer for telehealth, I lead design for the largest zero-to-one Walmart product since the grocery business. And launched in just six months.

Walmart's goal was to bring quality and affordable primary healthcare to rural America.

But Walmart's 51 state-of-the-art healthcare clinics were only available in five states—making quality healthcare inaccessible to customers who don't live in the neighborhood. And that's where Walmart Virtual Urgent Care comes in.

As Principal Designer for telehealth, I lead design for the largest zero-to-one Walmart product since the grocery business. And launched in just six months.

Role: Principal Designer

Role: Principal Designer

Team: Walmart Health

Team: Walmart Health

Time frame: 8 months

Time frame: 8 months

Collaborators: Design manager, Product manager (3), Content designer, Engineering (5 teams), Technical product manager (2), Scrummaster (2), Business lead (3), Medical compliance, Legal, Identity management, Accessibility, Living Design/design systems, Illustrator

"I'm not sure I want to get healthcare where I buy my dog food."

Walmart's customer base is anything but ambiguous. As the world's Fortune 1 company, Walmart touches 180 million customers per week.

Existing Walmart customer research told us that the core health customer was a woman between the ages of 25 and 34, who had a young family. Most Walmart customers were familiar with the company's world-class pharmacy experience, ranking among the top three in sales volume in all of healthcare. And many had patronized the company's fast-growing in-store Vision Center, which offered unparalleled prices and selection for eyewear.

Walmart's customer base is anything but ambiguous. As the world's Fortune 1 company, Walmart touches 180 million customers per week.

Walmart's existing customer research told us that the core primary care health customer was a woman between the ages of 25 and 34, who had a young family. That research also reinforced the fact that Walmart customers expected the company to remain true to its mission of offering low prices and quality care.

And teleheath was to be no different.

Healtcare for the core Walmart customer is often a challenge.

Young middle class American moms struggle to make ends meet. And convenience is often measured not by how much there is—but by how easy it is to access. Driving to a clinic with small kids hanging on your sleeves is not the best way to get your healthcare needs met.

Telehealth, therefore, was going to be successful to the degree we provided low prices—and also by how fast and predictable good care could be accessed on a phone.

Walmart does't have a brand awareness problems, as billions have been spent to communicate Walmart's core message: Save Money - Live Better.

But research also indicated that customers were wary of Walmart's healthcare credibility beyond selling medications and eyeglasses. "I'm not sure I want to get healthcare where I buy my dog food," remarked one customer. Others had expressed resistance to the very concept of telehealth, connecting it to the long standing controversies around Walmart allegedly "replacing" paid employees with self-checkout kiosks.

My key takeaway: Walmart gets us in the door, but it doesn't guarantee success. With Amazon undercutting our cash price for services, we had to deliver better care at an even cheaper price—on demand.

Healtcare for the core Walmart customer is often a challenge.

Young middle class American moms struggle to make ends meet. And convenience is often measured not by how much there is—but by how easy it is to access. Driving to a clinic with small kids hanging on your sleeves is not the best way to get your healthcare needs met.

Telehealth, therefore, was going to be successful to the degree we provided low prices—and also by how fast and predictable good care could be accessed on a phone.

Walmart's customer base is anything but ambiguous. As the world's Fortune 1 company, Walmart touches 180 million customers per week.

Walmart's existing customer research told us that the core primary care health customer was a woman between the ages of 25 and 34, who had a young family. That research also reinforced the fact that Walmart customers expected the company to remain true to its mission of offering low prices and quality care.

And teleheath was to be no different.

Research

One of my main responsibilities as Principal Designer for virtual urgent care was to lead and organize our research efforts. I participated in Walmart Design's annual Walmart Design Summit at their Bentonville, Arkansas home office, where the design team questioned two panels of core customers. Additionally, the Health design team visited several local Walmart Health clinics, interacting with healthcare professionals and their patients.

I wanted to understand what made the Walmart telehealth customer different.

Walmart Design assembled two panels of customers at the annual Walmart Design Summit at their Bentonville, Arkansas home office. The Health design team also visited several local Walmart Health clinics, interacting with healthcare professionals and their patients.

Walmart customers answer questions at the annual UX Design Summit in Bentonville, Arkansas. Customers relayed their ongoing challenge to "make ends meet" with a growing family, as well as strong opinions about Walmart "replacing" workers with self check-out.

Walmart customers answer questions from the Walmart Design team, at the annual UX Design Summit in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Walmart customers answer questions from the Walmart Design team, at the annual UX Design Summit in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Walmart was hardly the first company to build a stand-alone telehealth brand.

That's why I led a deep documentation of our competition using Figjam. We compared and contrasted telehealth providers by brand and product features—including messaging around symptoms, conditions, payment journeys, pharmacy selection and communications around visit details.

I learned that Amazon, Lemonade and Teladoc were pursing the same or similar goals via telehealth: Friction-free, low-cost virtual care—on demand, anywhere, anytime.

But in our research, customers complained that telehealth scheduling was too complex and required too much "paperwork." I also observed that the out-of-the-box Epic EHR telehealth UX which Walmart was using as a stopgap was visually confusing and inconsistent, had numerous unclear steps, and required tedious and at times unnecessary paperwork. This led users to quit the scheduling process, which dramatically impacted our completed visit counts.

Customers were outspoken about many things—most notably, the controversy around Walmart "replacing" workers with self check-out. This insight told me that virtual health was facing a real uphill battle within the powerful Walmart culture.

Amazon, Lemonade and Teladoc were pursing the same or similar goals via telehealth. That's why I led a deep documentation of these and other competitors in Figjam. I compared and contrasted telehealth providers by brand and product features—including messaging around symptoms, conditions, payment journeys, pharmacy selection and communications around visit details.

The tone of Walmart is plain spoken and to-the-point. But I observed that our competitors' path to a virtual visit was often visually noisy and packed with medical terms a common person was unlikely to understand. I worked with my product and content leaders to craft a user journey that talked in plain language, and had steps that required no understanding of medical terminology.

Customer User Journey

Our product requirements and competitor research helped me define our ideal customer user journey, which included a six-step online scheduling experience.

Each of the six steps included happy- and non-happy paths that integrated with various APIs within and outside of Walmart's technical infrastructure. To reflect the pain points discovered in our research, I emphasized transparent pricing and on-time visits. Our legal and medical authority ensured our total adherence to the strictest of HIPAA rules, ensuring utmost data privacy.

Our business and product requirements helped me define our ideal customer user journey, which included a six-step online scheduling experience.

Our ideal customer flow considered similar products we had built at previous companies—including Amazon, Teladoc, Google, Epic and HCA Healthcare. This experience was enhanced by transparent pricing, which featured a guaranteed cash-pay price plus the ability to pay using UnitedHealthcare Insurance—an industry first.

Our legal, compliance and medical stakeholders ensured that followed the strictest HIPAA and identity protection rules, which offered Walmart Health customers the highest level of data privacy and security.

Website

Identity

Schedule

Patient

Symptom

Location

Payment

Pharmacy

Review

Checkin

Visit

Followup

Wireframing and Iteration

Building a completely custom telehealth app at the scale of Walmart required unprecedented system thinking, information architecture and nuanced research and discovery.

Each sprint included some amount of brainstorming, discovery, experimentation and wireframing. We relied on established design patterns borrowed from the greater Walmart experience, but requirements usually required unique variants to meet the goals of the feature. In addition, Natalie Dunbar acted as the voice of the customer for words and tone of voice–usually around the wording of headlines and microcopy.

After we completed our full-run prototype for MVP, I checked our hypotheses through a managed usability study project. Headed by our exceptional research leader, Shal Naik, we demoed our prototype in moderated interviews. The usability evaluation was held on UserTesting.com.

Dozens of design iterations explored nuances in tone of voice, layout and component variants. Unique technical and compliance constraints—especially around payments, pharmacy and symptoms—were reflected in my design iterations, which required collaboration with our content, accessibility and design systems teams.

High fidelity Figma design

I articulated our simple scheduling process with a clear six-step progress bar. Headlines used common language that told the user what she needed to do on each page. Selectable components with just-enough detail made it easy for customers to make the right selections on her path to a healthcare visit.

Identity and trust

Trust is crucial.

Our login experience made it easy to offer a secure, personalized concierge booking that fit the unique needs of each remote care customer.

Friendly but clear constraints

Telehealth isn't right for everything.

That's why our legal, compliance and medical experts worked with content to craft just the right messaging to ensure patients knew what we couldn't treat prior to scheduling a visit.

Price transparency

Cost matters at Walmart.

That's why we promised a one-price-for-all cash payment option and guaranteed real-time co-payment UnitedHealthcare Insurance estimates within the scheduling flow.

Visit details

Walmart customers deemed digital healthcare a convenient option for prompt, non-critical medical needs. That's why we prioritized short wait times and on-time visits.

Users told us they saw virtual care as a convenient solution for quick, non-serious health conditions. We concluded it was imperative that we accurately communicate the exact time of visit, wait time, and eventual provider.

Pharmacy mapping

Research indicated that the selection of a pharmacy during the visit was a significant pain point–both for clinicians and patients. That's why we allowed patients to find and select a pharmacy of any brand during their visit scheduling process.

Responsive desktop layout

Post-launch analytics proved that more than 60% of Walmart Health's customers choose to schedule visits on a desktop computer—as opposed to a mobile device. I led the design of a desktop concept that emphasized styish illustrations, without changing the mobile components or APIs.

Users told us they saw virtual care as a convenient solution for quick, non-serious health conditions. We concluded it was imperative that we accurately communicate the exact time of visit, wait time, and eventual provider.

Success Metrics

Our MVP deployment of telehealth at Walmart saw immediate results:

The average time it took for a customer to schedule a healthcare visit went from 18 to just under three minutes. And our NPS score shortly after launch was 80—ranking telehealth among the highest rated user experiences in the entire Walmart ecosystem.

The new telehealth visit scheduling user experience cut patient wait times by up to 84%—going from an average if 17.6 minutes to just under three. As a result, our customer satisfaction rating went to 4.5 out of five stars.

The new telehealth visit scheduling user experience cut patient wait times by up to 84%—going from an average if 17.6 minutes to just under three. As a result, our customer satisfaction rating went to 4.5 out of five stars.

Video

To view the full "happy path" of the virtual urgent care app, click on the video below. (Run time is 3:04 minutes.)

Open To Work

Let’s talk about what you’re building and how I might be able to help.

Open To Work

Let’s talk about what you’re building and how I might be able to help.

Open To Work

Let’s talk about what you’re building and how I might be able to help.

How I led the design of an affordable, best-in-class virtual healthcare product—at the scale of Walmart

Mobile

Desktop

Strategy

Research

API Integrations

Information Architecture

Healthcare