Design Director

Transforming Analytics into Executive Advantage

Empowering executives with a user-centered platform to accelerate insight across healthcare
Partnered with a national healthcare client to redefine enterprise analytics capabilities. The initiative focused on elevating existing data foundations to accelerate actionable insight across business and clinical operations. Led strategic direction by identifying high-impact areas and prioritizing intuitive user experiences, rapid insight delivery, and measurable business outcomes. Delivered two MVP dashboards—one focused on business financials, the other on Value-Based Care (VBC) performance—developed through parallel workstreams and ultimately integrated into a unified executive analytics platform.
Dashboard DesignRapid Journey MappingExecutive AlignmentUsability OptimizationData SynthesisJourney MappingUser ResearchResearch-led DesignRapid PrototypingAgile Project ManagementUX DesignUX & Research Strategy

Challenge

A key challenge was the lack of clarity around which metrics executives needed to make timely, informed decisions. Access to relevant insights was further limited by fragmented tools, siloed data, and poor usability—resulting in delays and reduced decision-making effectiveness. Addressing these gaps required deep domain immersion to understand the clinical, operational, and financial levers that drive performance.

Solution

Developed a focused executive analytics platform grounded in deep domain immersion and user research. Through rapid, iterative working sessions and close collaboration with SMEs, quickly aligned on executive goals, priorities, and decision-making requirements. These insights shaped streamlined, role-specific dashboards that unified siloed data, enhanced usability, and delivered the metrics most critical to leadership.

Role & Responsibility

Role & Responsibility

  • Executive Communication & Presentation
  • Domain Expertise
  • Client Management
  • Product & MVP Definition
  • Strategy & Research
  • UX Design & UI
  • UX & Research Project Management

Deliverables

  • Created proto-personas to drive focused design
  • Launched rapid user research strategy
  • Mapped rapid user journeys
  • Synthesized and analyzed data in real time
  • Prototyped in parallel with research
  • Built streamlined style guide for consistency
  • Designed focused workshop for quick alignment
  • Led dual workstreams for accelerated delivery

Domain Immersion

Issue Tree
Mapped key drivers of value-based care performance through an issue tree that deconstructed clinical, operational, and financial problem areas. This framework clarified executive accountability, surfaced decision-critical metrics, and identified the data needed to support timely, informed action.
Executive Role Mapping
Outlined core executive roles to establish a shared understanding of project priorities and desired outcomes, building on the issue tree analysis. Clarified the responsibilities and decision-making scope associated with each role to ensure metric development aligned with leadership accountability.
Research Framework
Developed a high-level flow to define key themes and insight categories needed to understand executive roles, decision-making patterns, and organizational priorities. This framework informed question design and supported efficient synthesis of interview data, enabling targeted journey maps and focused downstream discovery.

Discovery

Exploratory User Interview
Conducted a rapid, iterative series of interviews with SMEs, Plan Presidents, and senior executives. Insights were synthesized between sessions to identify emerging patterns, refine focus areas, and inform subsequent interview rounds. This cyclical process enabled accelerated learning, allowing themes to evolve and deepen with each iteration.
Rapid Journey Mapping
Developed high-level journey maps in real time to synthesize insights from back-to-back interviews, enabling early alignment on key decision points, pain signals, and critical data needs. The undefined project scope and compressed research cadence required accelerated domain immersion and rapid decision-making throughout discovery.
Proto-Persona
Defined early assumptions about two core executive user types, including their needs, behaviors, and decision-making contexts. Used as a directional tool to guide initial design decisions and help prioritize the metrics and data most relevant to executive workflows.

Wireframes

MVP Focus Areas
Identified strategic priorities by synthesizing insights from domain analysis, internal documentation, and executive interviews. The resulting view highlights key lines of business and associated functions where the MVP is concentrated, surfacing high-impact decision points and informing metric prioritization.
Wireframes
Identified strategic priorities by synthesizing insights from domain analysis, internal documentation, and executive interviews. The resulting view highlights key lines of business and associated functions where the MVP is concentrated, surfacing high-impact decision points and informing metric prioritization.

Deliverables

  • MVP Analytics Platform
  • User Journey Maps
  • Style Guide
MVP Analytics Platform
Identified strategic priorities by synthesizing insights from domain analysis, internal documentation, and executive interviews. The resulting view highlights key lines of business and associated functions where the MVP is concentrated, surfacing high-impact decision points and informing metric prioritization.
2 Core User Journeys
Developed journey maps capturing current goals and experiences across key executive workflows. Each map highlighted pain points aligned to goals and surfaced gaps in decision-making clarity. Proposed future-state scenarios with design solutions to inform platform direction and prioritize feature development.
Style Guide 
Developed a platform-wide Style Guide incorporating standards and governance for components from both dashboards, establishing a cohesive design system to ensure consistency and support future scalability.

Success Metrics

Impact at Two Levels

Consulting engagements deliver value on two fronts: measurable outcomes for the client, and lasting capability growth for the firm. In this engagement, success meant:

  1. Launching an analytics platform that accelerated executive decision-making for a national healthcare payer.
  2. Securing a multi-year retainer through platform adoption and cross-functional executive alignment.

Impact to the Client: National Healthcare Payer

Executive Adoption: Achieved ~80% (16/20) executive adoption within 4 weeks of pilot start, validating platform value.

Decision Velocity: Reduced executive decision cycles from 2–3 days to near-immediate decisions through intuitive, clear visualizations.

Insight Quality: 9 of 10 executives reported improved ability to pinpoint performance drivers, boosting confidence in high-stakes decisions.

Impact to the Firm: McKinsey

Business Growth: UX-driven stakeholder alignment secured a multi-year retainer and reinforced the firm’s strategic partnership.

UX Credibility: Built executive alignment through UX-led collaboration, positioning design as a core partner in client delivery and renewal success.

Design Operations: Codified research and design playbooks—making work more repeatable and scalable across projects.