IA Feedback - Design intent Debt Resolution Team - Medical Copayments

[mnorthuis]

VFS acceptance criteria

• [ ] Let Platform know when the Must feedback has been incorporated
• [ ] Leave any comments for feedback you decide not to take
• [ ] VFS team closes the ticket

Thoughts/questions

• Please reach out to OCTO IA (@mpeterz) as a next step, and schedule time to discuss. This will help work out how this effort relates to other global IA work in flight.

Too early for specific feedback, so here's some random thoughts and questions :)

• For section navigation (aka left nav)...some things to keep in mind
  • Section navigation can only include items that live within that section. So in order to have the left nav, all the individual tools would need to be physically moved to this new hub (i.e. URL changes, redirects, link changes, etc). This is completely doable, but things like "direct deposit" wouldn't necessarily be in that navigation unless we are pulling it out of profile.
  • Adding notifications to the left nav would need some additional discussions and testing - that is not something that we have today. Would also need to consider how that would work on mobile since the section nav collapses.
• Will need to think about what the unauth experience looks like for this "hub". We do not currently have a "hub" on the site that is fully behind authentication besides profile. Will need to consider where unauth users are directed when they try to deep link, or when they click on a top level link.
• If the tools are combined into one, we will want to consider deep linking or task-based linking - i.e. how do we handle users that just want to review their current debt?
• There's a big question around where in the IA this "hub" or individual tool will live. As we've discussed, our tools are scattered across the site with no cohesive experience for users to do manage and track tasks (authenticated users).
• Need to review the hierarchy of items within a single tool concept - copays tend to be the most timely so having them first may make sense, but do we want debt second to bring visibility to them? Do we need jump links for users to quickly get to a section so each is easier to find? What are the key tasks/goals that users need to be able to be able to accomplish.
• Need to shore up terminology with veterans - when things are all brought together, some of the terminology gets squishy.
  • Is it clear to users that "payments" means payments VA has made to me, not payments I need to make?
  • Will users understand that copays live under a heading of "debt" or does it need to be "debt and copays" for example?

Feedback

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• Should = the feedback is best practice
• Consider = suggestions/enhancements

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[mnorthuis]

@mpeterz FYSA

[rileyorr]

Hi @mnorthuis - thanks for the feedback! I know we're meeting tomorrow but I'll be traveling to the airport at the same time so I'll respond to some of these points early in case my connection is spotty.

Adding notifications to the left nav would need some additional discussions and testing - that is not something that we have today. Would also need to consider how that would work on mobile since the section nav collapses.

Absolutely! We've been playing around with how we might add notifications to the mobile version of the nav for that very reason. One way we've explored that is through using an icon to indicate that there's a debt/bill/payment they should look at to direct them into the different tools.

We do not currently have a "hub" on the site that is fully behind authentication besides profile. Will need to consider where unauth users are directed when they try to deep link, or when they click on a top level link.

Definitely! However, I don't know that the hub needs to be fully behind authentication. The current 'Manage your VA debt' page encompasses all information related to debts and debt resolution, so I think there's opportunity to streamline the experience by breaking some of this information out onto other pages. I noticed the health care hub has an 'about health care' page, so I put together a concept that could move some of the content from the 'Manage your VA debt' page to an 'About VA debt' page, and if an unauth user navigates to the 'Manage your VA debt' page there'd still be information about what they can do in the tool and a CTA to login. We could follow a similar pattern with the medical copay tool if we decide to go down the route of having separate tools.

Is it clear to users that "payments" means payments VA has made to me, not payments I need to make?

During our discovery research study, multiple participants gravitated towards the 'View your payment history' links on the homepage expecting to see payments received and owed to be in one location. This is a quote from one of our participants: "Makes sense that payments incoming and outgoing would be under the same umbrella. By the terminology payment history would determine incoming and outcoming.". However, at least one participant mentioned that they knew they could only see payments received in the 'View your payment history' tool.

Will users understand that copays live under a heading of "debt" or does it need to be "debt and copays" for example?

Participants most commonly searched keywords varying "Billing", "Pay my bill", "Pay bill", "Pay bill here" while searching for a pathway to copayment information. Additionally, we gave participants the following scenario and asked what they would call that piece of mail: "You are a Veteran who went to a VA medical center in February for a routine checkup. In March, you went back to the VA medical center to hav a few routine tests done and you refilled your medication. Today, a couple weeks later, you received a piece of mail detailing your VA healthcare charges" 7 participants called it either a 'VA bill' or 'billing statement'. So I think we could potentially call it something like 'debt and bills' or 'debt and copay bills' if all the tools are combined.

As always, I appreciate the collaboration and look forward to chatting more about these points tomorrow!