What should a marketplace application checklist not do? Add confusion, that’s what.
Because after all, what is the defining principle of the Affordable Care Act?
Health care shouldn’t be hard to get.
Yet like many government-run programs, the ACA is riddled with poorly organized design patterns, which obscure meaning and confuse folks looking to get health insurance.
Take the Marketplace Application Checklist. In a perfect world, this checklist would speed up the process of getting your foot in the door. But let’s take a look at the original design.
Original Marketplace Application Checklist
More Text = Less Comprehension
Quite a block of text there, huh? Rather than employing visual language like icons, the checklist lists everything out in words. This slows down understanding, and gives an imposing, opaque feeling, when it should be welcoming and friendly.
A Checklist Without Lists
It’s easier to complete a task if you break it up into smaller tasks.
But even though the content here lends itself to bulleted lists within the larger parent list, related items like addresses and Social Security numbers aren’t collected together in any way. This design actually makes the application seem harder than it is.
There is a Better Way
In the small text at the bottom, it says, “You have the right to get the information in this product in an alternate format.”
Thank goodness for that.
Lemonly took what was a long list with little organization and made sense of the whole thing. Isn’t this a little easier to understand at a glance? (And what’s more, it’s responsive, so it’s easy to read on all devices, big and small.)
Lemonly Redesign
Bring Understanding to Your Marketing
All companies can fall prey to design that piles on text without thinking clearly about the needs and time of their audiences.
If you’d like to make better sense of your company’s data or its story, reach out to us: lemonly.com/contact. Visual storytelling can help enrich your relationship with your customers, and make your company fun to interact with.
