Better Benefits at BENEFEDS.gov

At FedPoint, one of my key projects was to solve accessibility challenges & enhance how federal civilians shop their benefit plans on BENEFEDS.gov. Collaborating with Ella Manzelli, we identified key customer pain points, performed mixed-methods research and applied a structured, 7-phase design process to thoughtfully provide a strong solution, improving onboarding, plan selection, and enrollment.

Through multiple design iterations and in-depth brainstorming sessions with Andrew Zarbo & James Roth, we successfully showcased the working solution and secured buy-in from the business team.

My Contributions
User Interviews
Heuristic Evaluation
Accessibility Checks
Persona Identification
Wireframing
Interface Design
Figma Make Prototype

Business KPI
Enrollment Rate

UX KPIs
Content-to-Chrome Ratio
Interaction Costs
Time on Task

Timeframe
4 Months

My Role
UX Specialist

Year
2025

01 Research
02 Problem Identification
03 Brainstorming
04 Design
05 Usability Testing & Dev-handoff plan

01 Research

Identifying Behavioral Patterns

I invested considerable time in identifying the target audience’s online behavior patterns for this project and grounded my decisions in insights about how they allocate their cognitive resources to scan, process, and absorb the information available on the portal.

Studied these two articles to develop a comprehensive understanding of the usability considerations and behavioral patterns of the target age group.

Usability for Older Adults - NNGroup.com
Middle-Aged Users’ Declining Web Performance - NNGroup.com

Key takeaways from the articles,

1. Decline in cognitive resources
Research indicates that usability performance decreases by approximately 0.8% per year between ages 25 and 60, reflecting slower information processing and reduced working memory among older adults.

2. Require clearer navigation patterns and interfaces
Middle‑aged users spend 0.5% more time per page and visit 0.3% more pages per task, highlighting the need for streamlined, intuitive navigation that reduces cognitive effort and supports efficient information discovery.

3. Accessible Design Gains
Optimizing usability & accessibility can improve task success rates by up to 25% and reduce error rates by 30%, creating a digital environment that’s not only reliable and intuitive but also instills confidence, comfort, and trust.

01.1 Research - Qualitative

Observational insights

With qualitative research methods, I gathered observational insights on why users struggle with the existing solution and how they accomplish the goals in the current scenario. While researching, I conducted moderated user interviews, analyzed the existing proxy interview data, and studied the persona demographic details. It helped me build the target persona of the user we cater to. In this case, one major persona attribute was the age.

Methods
a) Heuristic Evaluation
b) Proxy Interviews
c) Moderated Interviews
d) Persona Analysis

To learn more about my research process, connect with me.

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01.2 Research - Quantitative

Quantitative Numbers

Organizing tool’s performance metrics and user analytics on a dashboard made in Looker Studio, data fed from on Google Analytics, gave me quantitative numbers. Numbers that helped me give direction to the project and understand what success would look like, and what seems important from a business perspective.

Performance Indicators,
g) User-specific Analytics
h) Web Tool Performance

To learn more about my research process, connect with me.

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02 Problem Identification (HMW)

How could we ease the insurance-buying experience of an elderly civilian while retaining the trust within the federal administration?

Once the core problem was well understood, and the target user persona had been established, I re-organized the research data via affinity mapping. Insights were organized into meaningful categories, which helped me identify key pain points, emerging patterns and what needs major attention.

To learn more about my RCA process, connect.

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03 Brainstorming

I started from the root cause, the very first user touchpoint, and created flowcharts to visualize and understand the IA, the current flow of information, mapping to how the persona described they used the portal.

When I had the existing process flowchart, the next step was to improve it, minimizing the interaction cost, as I studied NNG articles, and from my understanding of the age group I was designing for, cognitive resources saved at one step could be used at another. So my goal was to help the users make decisions quickly without exhausting their cognitive resources during the initial steps of the portal.

To learn more about my brainstorming process, connect.

04 Design

In the solutioning stage, I indulge in 7 phases of design where I work on individual modules of the portal and work my way up to the most optimized solution, keeping WCAG 2.2 and 508 Compliance guidelines in mind for accessibility and usability. Every phase involves signing off on a module, and while I work on the smaller bits and pieces, the overall picture gets painted with absolute perfection.

To learn more about my design process, connect.

05 Usability Testing &
Dev-handoff plan

Towards the end of the project, I set directions to test the solution via usability testing methods - moderated sessions and A/B testing within a focused group. For this, I prepared the working model of the solution on Figma Make.

To me, understanding how a solution will be implemented within existing development resources, limitations, and bandwidth is just as critical as translating the written requirements into a functional prototype. Which is why I created an Impact–Effort Matrix to evaluate, break down, and prioritize my solution into smaller sprint-digestible projects, and assign them to Big Bets, Quick Wins, Fill-Ins, and Time Wasters.

To learn more about my testing process and dev-handoff process, connect.

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Let’s Connect

Certain details about this project are confidential, but as the primary contributor, I’ve outlined my work process and responsibilities. I’d love to connect and talk more about the process and the resulting business impact.


Peer Feedback

His collaboration skills and positive attitude made him a valued partner across disciplines, and his influence continues to shape our design processes even after his departure. Any organization would be fortunate to have Harshveen.

James Roth, Team Lead Digital Platforms, Fedpoint

He’s easy to work with, open to feedback, and always brings positive energy to every discussion. Any team would be lucky to have someone with his mix of creativity, clarity, and collaboration.

Ali Shah, MSIT, Senior Frontend Developer & Web Analyst, Fedpoint

Other projects at FedPoint USA

  • Buillding and maintainng FedPoint’s USWDS-based Design System from the ground up on Figma. (Atomic Structure + Tokens/Variables setup + Defining 15+ Components)

  • Optimized the compare tool, improving usability i.e Chrome-to-content ratio from 63.93/33.89 to 46.04/53.95.

  • Designing the business portal from scratch for the operations team (FMP+DQA) addressing and improving workflow efficiency.