🌐 The Core Mission

The transformation effort to shift BCBSMA from fragmented, dev/Insider‑centric UI work toward a centralized, scalable, research‑driven UX organization. The goal is to build a Global UX (GUX) ecosystem that unifies design language, tools, processes, and component libraries across all products—MyBlue App, MyBlue Web, Medicare, marketing sites, and future digital experiences.

This is not just a design project; it’s the blueprint for institutionalizing UX as a strategic function.

🧭 Strategic Priorities for a New UX Department

1. Move the Organization to Agile Lean UX

The current SDLC is dev‑centric and fragmented. The UX department must:

• Establish a Lean UX process with clear Discovery → Define → Design → Sprint → Optimize phases.

• Ensure UX works 3 sprints ahead of development to prevent reactive, micro‑feature design work.

• Introduce Sprint 0 as a foundational design phase for ecosystem‑level thinking.

This shift is essential to stop the cycle of inconsistent UI and siloed feature design.

2. Create a Unified Global Design Language

The department must build:

• A global design system (UXPin, Drupal, Angular)

• Dynamic themes, responsive grids, breakpoints

• Universal navigation, templates, and component patterns

• A shared asset library with naming conventions and governance

This system becomes the backbone for all digital products, enabling consistency, speed, and scalability.

3. Develop Smart Assets & a Component Ecosystem

A major initiative is the creation of:

• A component/widget catalog

• Smart assets linked through Jira and Confluence

• Deep‑linked specs, redlines, and style guides

• Reusable modules for marketing, MyBlue, Medicare, and logged‑in experiences

This reduces redundant design work and ensures developers always use the latest patterns.

4. Build a Research & Discovery Foundation

The UX department must institutionalize:

• Journey maps

• Personas

• Competitive analysis

• Exploratory user research

• A research wiki for organizational knowledge

This creates a centralized UX intelligence hub that informs all product teams.

5. Define the Digital Ecosystem & Taxonomy

The document outlines a full ecosystem IA:

• “Find & Shop” (public)

• “Manage MyBlue” (logged‑in)

• Medicare, Employer, Broker, Provider sites

• Universal navigation shared across all properties

The UX department must own and maintain this cross‑site taxonomy, ensuring coherence across the entire BCBSMA digital footprint.

🧩 Organizational Challenges the UX Department Must Solve

🔹 Fragmented UX

Teams currently design micro‑features without end‑to‑end visibility. This leads to:

• Inconsistent patterns

• Redundant components

• UI debt

• Conflicting design decisions across teams

🔹 Understaffing

The document repeatedly notes:

• Designers are over capacity

• Visual design support is insufficient

• GUX tools need dedicated owners

• Multiple major initiatives lack staffing

Standing up a UX department requires hiring, training, and defining roles.

🔹 Lack of Design Governance

There is no:

• Centralized style guide

• Component governance

• Asset management strategy

• Cross‑team design QA process

The new UX org must implement design QA, UAT signoff, and governance workflows.

My role as Principle Designer, changed to Design Director, and the Product, Tech and Design teams, developed a plan to match the above. Consolidating the fragmented business teams and design resources across a legacy structure were quickly realigned to fall into one of 5 channels (B2b, Providers, Customers, Medicare and User Health).
So we do rapid design on new products and sites, and develop a prioritized list to rebuild legacy in a sandbox. Hiring and Design systems teams were also rolled up under me.

🛠️ What the UX Department Must Build

1. A Design System

• Templates

• Components

• Widgets

• Dynamic themes

• Brand & style guides

• Asset libraries

• ADA‑compliant responsive patterns

2. A UX Process Framework

• Discovery → Define → Design → Sprint → Optimize

• Sprint 0 for ecosystem‑level design

• Clear deliverables: wires, comps, specs, content decks, prototypes

3. A Tooling Ecosystem

• Jira design stream

• Confluence research wiki

• Drupal component catalog

• UXPin design libraries

4. A Governance Model

• Deep‑linking specs

• Story alignment

• Design QA & signoff

• Cross‑product consistency rules

🧠 The Vision: A Mature, Scalable UX Organization

The document paints a clear vision of what BCBSMA needs from its UX department:

• A centralized design authority that defines the digital ecosystem

• A component‑driven, atomic design approach

• A research‑informed, user‑centered culture

• A repeatable, scalable design process

• A cross‑functional partner to product and engineering

• A strategic force that shapes the future of BCBSMA digital experiences

This is the blueprint for transforming BCBSMA into a design‑mature organization with UX as a core competency.