MyWaypoint UX Research & Design
This project looked to validate a scalable content selector and homepage creative for AstraZeneca's cancer patient support platform.
01
Overview
The who and what of it.
Role
UX Designer/Researcher
scope
Research · UX · Design
platform
Mobile & Desktop Web
audience
Cancer patients, caregivers, healthcare providers
MyWaypoint is AstraZeneca's patient support hub. It is a guided web experience helping cancer patients find treatment information, financial resources, and ongoing support. The platform uses a wizard-style navigation selector to route users to content relevant to their specific cancer type, treatment, and needs.
As AstraZeneca expanded the platform to support additional treatments, the design team needed to validate two things before moving forward: whether the navigation flow could scale without breaking the user experience, and whether the ad creative driving traffic to the site was helping or hurting engagement once users arrived.
02
The problem
Qualified patients were arriving but dropping off before engaging with the site.
Paid media was successfully driving qualified patients to MyWaypoint, but analytics showed a significant drop-off at the homepage - users weren't engaging with "Begin Here." Two questions needed answers: could a fifth step be added to the selector without adding confusion for an already overwhelmed audience, and was the ad creative creating an emotional mismatch that undermined trust the moment users landed?
Homepage drop-off
Qualified patients arrived but didn't click "Begin Here" — the entry point to all content on the platform.
Scalability pressure
New treatments required a fifth selector step. Adding complexity to an already anxious audience needed validation before shipping.
Emotional mismatch
The social ad imagery - distressed, dark - clashed with a solutions-oriented destination, eroding trust on arrival.
High-stakes audience
People navigating a cancer diagnosis have little tolerance for friction. Any confusion carried real-world consequences.
03
My process
Two moderated usability studies tested navigation, homepage creative, and landing pages with real patients.
Two moderated remote usability studies were run simultaneously, each targeting a distinct design question.
Test 1 recruited 5 LYNPARZA patients to complete three mobile prototype tasks - finding side effect information, affordability resources, and treatment details.
Test 2 recruited 13 patients across CALQUENCE, IMFINZI, and TAGRISSO to react to the live social ad, navigate a desktop prototype, and compare two homepage creative options. Both tests used the think-aloud testing methodology.
Pharma constraints
Regulatory environment limited copy flexibility. Prototype-only - no live site data. Qualitative signals, but no statistical proof.
Think-aloud protocol
We asked participants to “think out loud” as they were interacting with or viewing each prototype to help verbalize their thoughts.
Ease of use rating
After each test we asked participants to rate their ease of use, helping to quantify the verbal feedback we were receiving during testing.
Test 1: 5-step selector
5 LYNPARZA patients. 3 tasks on a mobile InVision prototype. Think-aloud protocol to surface friction points in the wizard flow.
“If my mom or my grandma, who are just as active in research as I am, were to use this site, they would find it just as easy to use as I did.”
- Test participant
Test 2a: homepage creative
13 patients across 3 treatments. Desktop prototype comparison of ad creative vs. brand creative homepage variants.
“When I’m researching a cancer prescription, I don’t want to look at a defeated, lost cause. I want to feel like I’m researching something that’s going to work."
- Test participant
Test 2b: Landing page impressions
We showed these same participants a preview of treatment-specific landing pages. These landing pages were what users would land on after getting a recommended treatment option and provided information on affordability, general drug information, and side effects.
“I think it’s good, it just looks a little busy… If I’m looking for affording, I don’t know that I’d want to get distracted yet.”
- Test participant
04
Outcomes & Solutions
Vague labels and mismatched ad imagery needed to be fixed, and the 5-step wizard was validated.
The 5-step selector validated without issue. All five participants moved through the wizard fluidly, never raising step count as a concern. But labels needed fixing. "Basic Information" and "Taking LYNPARZA" didn't communicate "side effects" clearly enough, and caused hesitation at the final step. Surfacing "side effects" as adjacent descriptor text mapped directly to how patients think about their needs without restructuring the flow.
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The brand creative homepage - abstract blue gradient, no photography - outperformed the ad creative version consistently. The headline "Helping You Navigate Cancer" anchored orientation immediately. The ad creative wasn't abandoned; the recommendation was to bridge tone and color between ad and homepage through continuity rather than literal image repetition, paired with A/B testing to find imagery that feels empowering rather than distressing.
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Recommendations were ultimately rolled into the website mywaypointaz.com build (site no longer active).
Wizard validated
5-step selector was validated for implementation. Staged disclosure was able to scale without adding cognitive load for patients.
Label fixes
"Taking LYNPARZA" → "Taking LYNPARZA & Side Effects." Clinical subtype labels were also flagged to be rewritten in plain language.
Brand creative wins
Ad imagery removed from homepage. Brand creative direction adopted. A/B testing queued to validate imagery at scale.
UX copy updates
"Welcome to MyWaypoint" → "Helping You Navigate Cancer." "4-5 easy steps" → "a few easy steps" to help reduce confusion.
