Hey there! I’m Alesha (uh-LEE-shuh)
I am a product designer located in the Chicagoland area with more than 19 years of experience designing experiences that enable people to accomplish their tasks effectively. For the past 7 years, I’ve been solving patient’s digital pharmacy needs at Optum. Prior experience at Sears Holdings, University of Chicago and Accenture.
This role is also known as a user experience designer, an experience designer, an information architect, or a unicorn.
Scroll down to review some of my work
Design philosophies
Empathetic
"The members of the project team, including the designer, are not users. I approach work with the goal of understanding the end users, how they perceive the problem being solved, and the external factors that may affect their ability to complete tasks.
Meaningful
I want to create designs that users find valuable and that have a positive impact on their lives. Understanding the value drives the creation of products that users want to use.
Simple
As the late Kelly Johnson said, “Keep it simple, stupid,” or KISS. Many times, teams want to tell people everything, which overcomplicates the experience.
Usable
Usability goes beyond the arrangement of the elements on the page; it should ensure that the experience meets the needs of the people it was intended for.
Consistent
Aligning designs to what people are familiar with prevents them from spending a lot of time learning or relearning how to engage with the product.
Case studies
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Digital responsive portal that allows patients with complex conditions to manage their prescriptions online via the web or mobile app.
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A mobile tool that allows store associates the ability to check customers out anywhere in the store.
Specialty pharmacy patient portal
Business perspective
Problem
Patients with complex conditions need to order their prescriptions, which improves their quality of life. The company can reduce call center costs and patient hold times by providing patients with self-service options.
Solution
I became a subject matter expert, which allowed me to unpack the business and technical complexity and minimize the patient's confusion and burden of understanding. I understood the patients' pain points and goals and provided a tool that made their lives easier. I also understood the market and what patients experienced with competitors to reduce the learning curve.
Outcome
Better understanding of the different patient's mental model
Iterate on the design to ensure it meets all patient needs
User experience perspective
Problem
Healthcare is overwhelming for everyday people to understand. Having a complex condition adds an extra layer to that. Patients want to receive their medication timely and accurate.
Solution
Develop a web-responsive online portal that allows patients to manage their prescriptions without calling a care coordinator. Patients can track orders, refill their medication, and check the status of their prescriptions.
65% of all available prescriptions can be ordered digitally.
Outcome
55% of all orders placed are completed digitally
The product team
Product
10 capability managers and product owners providing business requirements and executing on the solution
Design
Creates patient experiences based on requirements
Engineering
Scrum master
Ensures the development team is staying on task and is following the agile process
30+ developers consisting of front-end, full stack, quality assurance and architects
Breakdown of the design team and my role
Lead
Primary role
Works with other project team leads to bring the voice of the patient to the conversation to establish priorities for the upcoming year and review the design team’s work
UX designer
Primary role
Define the flows and document the solution via prototypes and wireframes
UI designer
Copywriter
Ensures the company’s voice is communicated effectively within the design
Defines and applies company-wide brand guidelines to the design
A11y engineer
Ensures all designs are free of barriers that would prevent equal access for patients using assistive technologies
Researcher
Conducts studies to ensure the design is usable and understand patients’ mental models
My design process
Not all features can go through the all steps of the design process. When time or other limitations get in the waot in the way, I turned to observing at my local pharmacy, drawingom family or personal experiences and social media.
1: Understand
I meet with the capability manager responsible for the feature to understand the problem and goals. Ideally, this occurs early to help guide technical decisions and define the scope.
2: Design
Get ideas (multiple options) on “paper.” Look at what is already being done within the company/team, as well as competitive analysis and research findings. Get feedback from the project and the overall design team and, ideally, have a research study. Help define and understand technical feasibility and requirements.
3: Deliver
Create wireframes and prototypes for the product and development. Once the feature has been released, understand the project's value and iterate.
Part of my journey
The beginning
The application was designed by the engineering team. It contained a lot of text, tables, and confusing navigation, which prevented patients from placing actual orders. My role consisted of learning, maintaining, and adding requested features without redesigning.
Redesign exploration
As the specialty pharmacy space grew, funding became available, allowing the design team to begin exploring and envisioning what the patient portal could become.
One area that was explored the most was registration. This involved creating an account not only to fill a prescription with the pharmacy but also to generate a digital account by creating a username and password.
Researching findings and data points
18 60-minute, 1:1 interviews were done to gather insights on the user journey from initial diagnosis to today and assess the onboarding process for chronically conditioned men and women on at least one specialty medication.
83% of participants agreed or strongly agreed that the design was simple using a 5-point Likert scale.
The design scored 91 on the System Usability Scale (SUS), an industry-standard technique for measuring perceived usability; the benchmark average is 67.
The design scored a net promoter score (NPS) of 56. This is an industry-standard technique for measuring customer loyalty to a product; the benchmark average is 31.
Project reflection
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Business goals haven been met each year. From an overall experience perspective, all user experience goals haven’t been met but I have been working towards meeting those goals.
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From a business perspective, the portal has been extremely successful. Due to its success, in 2022 the budget was increased to hire more people and accelerate feature releases.
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As the design and project team grew, I wish I would have pushed harder to maintain the fundamental way of working across participants. Focused more on a11y and adoption.
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Adoption of a tool used to order medication that can maintain a person’s everyday life is a hard to overcome after a bad experience (most of the time not related to the user interface design).
Mobile point-of-sale
Business perspective
Problem
Allow commission-based employees the ability to service customers more efficiently with a single tool to find the items they are looking for.
Solution
Create a mobile (iPad and iPod) point-of-sale that allows employees to show customers all available products, complete the purchase, or follow up with the customer later about their visit. This would allow commission-based employees to close more purchases.
Outcome
80% adoption rate across employees
70% of transactions are completed through the app
User experience perspective
Problem
Commission-based employees are forced to use a customer website on a mobile device within the store to check them out.
Solution
I became a subject matter expert in unpacking the register's complexity and translating it into a touch-screen interface. I understood employee pain points and goals and provided a tool that made their lives easier, even if it meant advocating that the project scope shift.
Outcome
Employees appreciated the usability of the application
Younger associates preferred the app over using the register
The product team
Product owner
4 product owners providing business requirements
Design
Creates experiences for the store associates based on requirements along with front-end developers
Engineering
Product management
Ensures the product is on task and roadblocks are removed quickly and removed for design and engineering
System architects, back-end developers, and quality assurance
Breakdown of the design team and my role
Lead
Primary role
Works with other project team leads to bring the voice of the associate to the conversation to help establish priorities for the upcoming year
UX designer
Primary role
Define the flows and document the solution via prototypes and wireframes
UI designer
Copywriter
Ensures the company’s voice is communicated effectively within the design
Defines and applies company-wide brand guidelines to the design
Front-end developer
Created the front-end code to the development team based on the UX/UI designs
My design process
I benefited from working above a store where I had daily access to associates in the store using the product I was designing. I was often able to get feedback in real-time, and I visited other stores as well to get feedback.
1: Understand
I met with the product team to understand the next feature (new or existing on the register). If it was an existing feature, I talked to associates in the store to understand how they completed the same task today.
2: Design
Get ideas (multiple options) on “paper.” Got feedback from the store associates. Worked with system engineer to align the technical and UX solution regarding data availability and service calls, modified as needed.
3: Deliver
Worked closely with the front-end developers and iterated as needed. Create wireframes and prototypes for product and development.
Part of my journey
The beginning
The application was originally designed using Sears.com, a customer’s mental model. The functionality and data an associate needed were not easy to find. My role consisted of learning the register and speaking to associates to understand their pain points.
Redesign exploration
The product team requested a lawn and garden movers finder to get a bit of a facelift. They provided the following feedback/requirements:
The color scheme and components used for this design don’t match the rest of the application, and it is also not scalable to other finders.
Product stated that associates need the ability to show all filters without needing to scroll
It's essential that the associates can view the results and filters simultaneously, without the need to scroll, to ensure a seamless user experience.
Outcome-based on options presented
It was decided to go with option 3, which was not to release a finder at the current time. Using a cost-effectiveness angle and based on the number of team members needed to redesign and build the feature, metrics, and feedback from associates showed they don’t use finders.
Project reflection
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Overall, employees were able to assist members in ways they couldn’t have before (showcase products not available on the showroom floor, show reviews, easily manage recaps, etc)
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There were a lot of lessons learned from this project that may have influenced change within the industry.
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The direction and scope of the project before there was no way left to save it. It was a great idea that is now more common, would’ve had liked to have more impact in that space.
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Many times the challenge that needs to be solved for is not always tied to the pixels on a screen. Being an advocate for the user can sometimes be that the tool is not helping.