The Aspen Group

UX/UI

Lead Product Designer

Healthcare

User Research

My roles

UX Design Leadershop: Designed UX for an end-to-end mobile-first healthcare scheduling flow, reducing barriers for high-volume users
Journey Mapping & Strategy: Defined product strategy and led user research to map the urgent care patient journey and surface top friction points
User Research: Conducted surveys, A/B tests, heatmaps, and usability testing to inform design decisions and prioritize pain points
Cross-Functional Execution: Led a cross-functional team to prototype, test, and launch a streamlined self-service booking experience

My roles

UX Design Leadershop: Designed UX for an end-to-end mobile-first healthcare scheduling flow, reducing barriers for high-volume users
Journey Mapping & Strategy: Defined product strategy and led user research to map the urgent care patient journey and surface top friction points
User Research: Conducted surveys, A/B tests, heatmaps, and usability testing to inform design decisions and prioritize pain points
Cross-Functional Execution: Led a cross-functional team to prototype, test, and launch a streamlined self-service booking experience

My roles

UX Design Leadershop: Designed UX for an end-to-end mobile-first healthcare scheduling flow, reducing barriers for high-volume users
Journey Mapping & Strategy: Defined product strategy and led user research to map the urgent care patient journey and surface top friction points
User Research: Conducted surveys, A/B tests, heatmaps, and usability testing to inform design decisions and prioritize pain points
Cross-Functional Execution: Led a cross-functional team to prototype, test, and launch a streamlined self-service booking experience

Product impacts

Booking Efficiency: 48% faster booking time through geo-location and default visit reason logic
Mobile Conversions: 22% increase in mobile conversion rates via optimized navigation, copy, and structure
Reduced Drop-Off: 30% drop in abandonment during scheduling from usability improvements and A/B testing
Self-Sufficiency: 90% of users completed scheduling without needing assistance or phone support

Product impacts

Booking Efficiency: 48% faster booking time through geo-location and default visit reason logic
Mobile Conversions: 22% increase in mobile conversion rates via optimized navigation, copy, and structure
Reduced Drop-Off: 30% drop in abandonment during scheduling from usability improvements and A/B testing
Self-Sufficiency: 90% of users completed scheduling without needing assistance or phone support

Product impacts

Booking Efficiency: 48% faster booking time through geo-location and default visit reason logic
Mobile Conversions: 22% increase in mobile conversion rates via optimized navigation, copy, and structure
Reduced Drop-Off: 30% drop in abandonment during scheduling from usability improvements and A/B testing
Self-Sufficiency: 90% of users completed scheduling without needing assistance or phone support

WellNow Urgent Care is a leading provider of walk-in and virtual healthcare services, operating across 200+ locations. WellNow offers online scheduling, urgent care visits, and telehealth options.

As the Lead Product Designer, my role was to enhance the digital appointment booking experience by reducing friction, improving accessibility, enhancing the mobile experience, and addressing usability bottlenecks.

Through quantitative and qualitative research, I identified key pain points and developed solutions that aligned with both user needs and business goals.

This case study explores how a research-driven solution helped optimize the scheduling process, website, and a mobile-first experience.

The Problem: Is WellNow’s online scheduling an issue, and why?

WellNow Urgent Care provides online appointment scheduling, but user research and analytics revealed major friction points in the experience.

High drop-off rates: (50%) during the scheduling process (Google Analytics)
Mobile usability issues: Heatmaps showed low engagement and frustration signals on small tap targets and form fields.
CTA button/copy confusion: Button, call to action + overall site copy led to lower conversion rates and confused users.
Lack of rescheduling options: Patients couldn’t easily modify or cancel appointments, increasing no-shows.
Disconnect with content/marketing team: UI and brand inconsistency resulted in loss of trustworthiness.

The discovery stage:
Let’s define the main problems we want to solve

Conduct user research & data analysis + competitive analysis

Analyze analytics, session recordings, & user surveys to pinpoint pain/drop-off points.
Look at leaders in the telehealth/medical industry for not only comparison, but inspiration.

Simplify the scheduling flow

Reduce the form steps and eliminate redundant fields.
Design a mobile-first experience (90% of users are mobile, coming from Google search)
Progress indicators to guide users through the scheduling journey

Improve Call-to-action messaging & navigation

A/B test CTA copy (e.g., “Schedule Visit” vs. “Schedule In-Person Visit”)
Enhance button contrast, size, and placement to improve visibility.

Address Appointment Availability & Rescheduling Issues

Enable real-time slot updates to prevent scheduling conflicts.
Advocate for a more flexible rescheduling process, balancing business concerns and patient needs.

Focus on accessibility & brand Cohesion

Ensure text contrast, alt text, and keyboard navigation met WCAG standards.
Work with the content team to improve consistency across the website and   scheduling platform.

Conduct user research & data analysis + competitive analysis

Analyze analytics, session recordings, & user surveys to pinpoint pain/drop-off points.
Look at leaders in the telehealth/medical industry for not only comparison, but inspiration.

Simplify the scheduling flow

Reduce the form steps and eliminate redundant fields.
Design a mobile-first experience (90% of users are mobile, coming from Google search)
Progress indicators to guide users through the scheduling journey

Improve Call-to-action messaging & navigation

A/B test CTA copy (e.g., “Schedule Visit” vs. “Schedule In-Person Visit”)
Enhance button contrast, size, and placement to improve visibility.

Address Appointment Availability & Rescheduling Issues

Enable real-time slot updates to prevent scheduling conflicts.
Advocate for a more flexible rescheduling process, balancing business concerns and patient needs.

Focus on accessibility & brand Cohesion

Ensure text contrast, alt text, and keyboard navigation met WCAG standards.
Work with the content team to improve consistency across the website and   scheduling platform.

Conduct user research & data analysis + competitive analysis

Analyze analytics, session recordings, & user surveys to pinpoint pain/drop-off points.
Look at leaders in the telehealth/medical industry for not only comparison, but inspiration.

Simplify the scheduling flow

Reduce the form steps and eliminate redundant fields.
Design a mobile-first experience (90% of users are mobile, coming from Google search)
Progress indicators to guide users through the scheduling journey

Improve Call-to-action messaging & navigation

A/B test CTA copy (e.g., “Schedule Visit” vs. “Schedule In-Person Visit”)
Enhance button contrast, size, and placement to improve visibility.

Address Appointment Availability & Rescheduling Issues

Enable real-time slot updates to prevent scheduling conflicts.
Advocate for a more flexible rescheduling process, balancing business concerns and patient needs.

Focus on accessibility & brand Cohesion

Ensure text contrast, alt text, and keyboard navigation met WCAG standards.
Work with the content team to improve consistency across the website and   scheduling platform.

“What the hell do I click on if I want to schedule a virtual visit,
and not start one?” (Userlytics quote)

“I didn’t even click submit yet, why is everything all red?”

“There are so many times, like every 10 minutes, it's overwhelming… and why are some buttons blue up top, some in the middle, and then again at the bottom? I wasn’t sure which ones actually did something.”

The process: My role as the lead product designer was to…

Identify usability bottlenecks through quantitative and qualitative research + perform a site-wide UX audit.
Redesign the scheduling experience to improve usability and conversion rates.
Redesign the Navigation + restructure the landing page to improve and optimize the home page experience
Ensure the platform was mobile-friendly and accessible.
Align UX solutions with business goals while presenting ideas to stakeholders.
Increasing patient retention and lower cancellation/no-show rates.

WellNow Scheduling User Flow

Don’t Make Me Think! (My goal for users)

User Research: Test Early, Test Often

Entire site audit– Dove deep into existing domain knowledge, and uncovered customer insights through extensive field research and competitive analysis (both digitally, and in-vehicle)

Conducted user tests with users and existing patients to verify and discover scheduling pain points
Identified that appointment scheduling had a high abandonment rate based on Google Analytics/drop date data
Competitive analysis (Midwest Express Clinic, UChicago Medicine, CVS Minute-Clinic)
Fast, light, frequent testing (6 users)
Think-aloud protocols (verbalize their thoughts as they navigated the website)
First-click testing for scheduling copy
VWO A/B testing
Heatmapping

Navigation Redesign + Validation

New navigation to follow the rest of the Aspen brands to include hover-over drop downs, chevrons,
and opening pages in new tabs when applicable.

UXR Tree Test Results:
  95% accuracy on find-ability with the new navigation.
(tested twice with 50 users total until I got at least 90%)

Homepage CTA User Research Results

“A lot of questions are asked prior, I hope this means I spend less time at the Dr.’s office”
7/10 took over 1 minute to schedule a virtual visit and 3/10   
took over 5 minutes!
“I’m confused with the cost, because it says online costs $75, but video costs $75 too..so is that 150?”
“What the hell do I click on if I want to schedule a virtual visit, and not start one?”

“A lot of questions are asked prior, I hope this means I spend less time at the Dr.’s office”
7/10 took over 1 minute to schedule a virtual visit and 3/10   
took over 5 minutes!
“I’m confused with the cost, because it says online costs $75, but video costs $75 too..so is that 150?”
“What the hell do I click on if I want to schedule a virtual visit, and not start one?”

“A lot of questions are asked prior, I hope this means I spend less time at the Dr.’s office”
7/10 took over 1 minute to schedule a virtual visit and 3/10   
took over 5 minutes!
“I’m confused with the cost, because it says online costs $75, but video costs $75 too..so is that 150?”
“What the hell do I click on if I want to schedule a virtual visit, and not start one?”

28.45% increase in virtual visit CTA clicks after A/B testing clearer button labels.