Sun Life - Horizontal Services

Background & Overview

Largest insurance company in Canada is modernizing its online experience for clients.

Sun Life Financial is a Canadian financial services company known primarily for its life insurance products and asset management services. It is one of the largest life insurance companies in the world, and also one of the oldest with a history dating back to 1865.

Clients have expressed frustration with lack of basic functionalities such as updating their contact information, among many others. With a growing focus on client experience, a company-wide initiative to standardize client experience across all business units was underway.

My Role & What I Did

UX Design Lead.

At the time, Sun Life had an emergent design practice. The organization was still working on proving the value and impact of UX. There were no widespread, systematic UX processes in place. A design system was just starting materialize in parallel with this project. I was part of two agile teams, each focusing on web and native mobile experiences. I was responsible for:

User research
Stakeholder interviews
Information architecture
Rapid prototyping
User testing
Visual design

Main Challenge & Goals

How can we provide clients with a consistent web and native app experience, regardless of which product they have purchased, who their corporate sponsor is, or what they are trying to accomplish?

Sun Life has over 37,000 employees across multiple business units. Group Benefits, Group Retirement Services, and Individual Insurance are the three major pillars of the company’s business. With 150 years of established business practices, it is not always easy to drive change.

For Sun Life to position itself as an industry leader, the following goals were defined:

Goal #1

Focus on a single, cohesive, and consistent experience for every client

Goal #2

Improve functionality and usability

Goal #3

Overhaul the experience by leveraging client feedback

Goal #4

Promote self-service experiences

Discovery & Research

No logical information architecture. Clients get lost and frustrated when trying to complete basic tasks.

To understand what our clients need, as a starting point I engaged our UX Research team at Sun Life. We honed our approach by dialling in on customer feedback and analytics. We performed a competitive analysis, looking at both financial and non-financial platforms to get an understanding of how some of the top companies operate.

One thing was clear: our existing information architecture was ineffective and confusing. Users had no idea how to navigate the Sun Life ecosystem and were frequently getting frustrated trying to complete simple tasks. These tasks could be as basic as changing their address or switching to paperless statement delivery.

Armed with a sharpie and sticky notes, I grabbed a teammate and we got to work. To find a solution to our problem, we started analog with a guerrilla card sorting exercise. We stopped various people in our office complex who were promised a free coffee in exchange for their thoughts and feedback on our work in progress.

Card sorting of Sun Life Horizontal Services

After analyzing the results, a clear pattern emerged. We were able to come up with a foundation for improved information architecture that was intuitive and, most importantly, served the needs of our users.

Information architecture of Sun Life Horizontal Services

Solution

I worked closely with the product owner and both engineering teams to define use cases, client journeys and flows.

I designed a new purchase path that gave the client a quote after the first three questions, giving them the chance to decide if they wish to continue with their application early on.

User flow diagram of Sun Life Horizontal Services

Following this, I organized a series of workshops to brainstorm on concepts that addressed the problems our users have been experiencing. We had to make sure we did this while also meeting our business partners’ objectives.

Whiteboarding of Sun Life Horizontal Services

How we communicate with our users is an equal part of the overall experience. Working closely with a UX Writer, we created a journey that allows users to complete their tasks as efficiently as possible. After we finalized content, I took to storyboarding the end-to-end experience.

User Testing

How can we reduce the amount of searching and random clicking and make the experience intuitive?

To validate my assumptions, early iterations of the solution were stitched together into a prototype. I prepared scenarios that asked users to complete a series of tasks such as updating their email address, changing a phone number, or enabling biometrics features on their device.

Testing was done remotely with select participants via usertesting.com. Once the testing process was complete, I made sure to ask probing questions to assess their understanding of the experience and overall satisfaction. The responses allowed us to make necessary changes before moving into the high-fidelity design phase.

Screenshots of user testing process of Sun Life Horizontal Services

Final Design

I was the first designer to leverage the new design system in action, providing valuable feedback and helping promote its benefits.

In parallel to this project, a full-fledged design system was being built at Sun Life. This was the pilot and the first major project to put the design system into practice. Instead of spending an inordinate amount of time pushing pixels and redlining, the new design system allowed for a modular approach to the solution. The pilot was a success and this project proved to be a major driver in getting the green light to use the design system across Sun Life’s digital platform in future projects.

Final mockups of Sun Life Horizontal Services

Results & Impact

Major reduction of service requests to the call centre for common tasks.

We found that there was a significant reduction of service requests to the client call centre shortly after launching. Common tasks such as address management, email management, and paperless statement delivery could now be performed by users on the web or through the mobile app.

This allowed for call centre staff to focus on more complex requests and providing a better overall client experience.

Sun Life Horizontal Services

A revitalization initiative of Sun Life’s secure website and mobile app with a focus on self-service.

August 2018 - November 2019