Content Strategy for a Configurable Rewards Platform

THE BACKGROUND

As Highmark moved Wellness & Rewards toward a more flexible platform architecture, clients could purchase programs with dramatically different structures, requirements, completion logic, and reward models. The platform needed to support that range of configuration without burying the member in complexity.

THE PROBLEM

At first glance, a rewards platform looks simple: members complete activities, earn points, and receive incentives. In practice, the platform needed to support a large number of possible program configurations without overwhelming the person using it. Research and design conversations kept identifying the same issue — people didn't understand what to do next. Large activity lists, program complexity, group structures, completion requirements, and progress tracking were all competing for the member's attention at once.

COMPLICATIONS

Highly configurable program logic. Because different clients could configure programs so differently, there wasn't one "correct" content pattern to apply everywhere. Any solution had to flex without becoming inconsistent.

Less content, not more. The instinct in a situation like this is to add explanation. But more content would have made the cognitive load worse, not better. The real challenge was helping people understand complex systems with less content, not more.

Working beyond the content brief. My formal role was UX writer, but the problems identified were structural — information architecture, interaction models, progress communication — which meant flexing into more technical areas than just the words on the screen.

THE PROCESS

I focused on reducing cognitive load by evaluating how content and structure worked together, rather than treating them as separate problems. Instead of asking how to phrase something more clearly, I asked whether the platform needed to say it at all. That reframing pushed conversations toward more visible information, stronger hierarchy, simplified layouts, better grouping of activities, clearer labeling, and less content hidden behind taps and expandable sections.

THE IMPACT

The work moved discussions from screen-level content decisions to experience-level problem solving. It shaped how activities were organized, how progress was represented, how members understood program requirements, and how future content models would scale across configurations.