The Problem

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One of Australia's largest health insurers wanted to evolve its existing mental health experience into a comprehensive digital support hub. The challenge was particularly acute among younger Australians, who demonstrated low trust in private health insurers as credible mental health providers, alongside frustration with vague, generic or overwhelming mental health content online.

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Our Methodology & Approach

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• Global best practice benchmarking across health funds and mental health organisations
• Behavioural research with younger Australians, parents and carers
• Visual stimulus testing and trust analysis
• Information architecture (IA) and navigation development
• IA Design informed by behavioural research
• High-fidelity wireframe creation
• Moderated and unmoderated usability testing of alternative UX approaches
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Key Insights
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• Younger Australians demonstrated significant distrust toward private health insurers within mental health contexts
• Frustrations with mental health information consistently fell into three categories: overly generic advice, lack of relevance to individual situations and overwhelming volumes of conflicting content
• Participants strongly preferred highly specific and contextual guidance rather than broad wellbeing content
• Interactive guidance mechanisms such as quizzes, needs-based navigation and tailored pathways reduced cognitive load and improved confidence
• Users responded favourably to navigation models framed around emotional state and support intent rather than clinical terminology
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Optimisation Recommendations
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• Development of a redesigned mental health information architecture centred around needs-based navigation
• Introduction of guided pathways and quiz-based support journeys
• Refinement of language, navigation and content structures to reduce cognitive load and increase emotional resonance
• Adoption of user-centred design principles guiding future mental health experience development
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Outcomes
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• Delivered a validated UX and digital strategy framework for the evolution of the digital mental health experience
• Identified critical trust barriers preventing younger Australians from engaging with insurer-led mental health experiences
• Established evidence-based design principles tailored to emotionally sensitive support journeys
• Enabled the organisation to move toward a more personalised, actionable and credible mental health support experience.

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