Ed Sanchez

Product & UX Design

Product & UX Design

All selected work

CASE STUDY / MANULIFE

Manulife: Unifying the Mobile Ecosystem

Role: Senior UX Designer (Mobile Lead)

Focus: Native Mobile Guidelines (SwiftUI & Material Design), Legacy Backend Convergence, Contextual Nudges

Led native iOS and Android mobile design to establish cross-platform design direction, navigate mismatched backend databases across converging business units, and bridge the digital divide for group retirement and benefits.

01 / CORE PROBLEM

A Fragmented Ecosystem from the Front Door Inward

Manulife's digital ecosystem was heavily siloed, forcing users to navigate a disjointed architecture across multiple lines of business—banking, Group Benefits, and Group Retirement.

This fragmentation impacted every layer of the customer journey:

  • The Access Layer: Customers possessed disparate legacy usernames and passwords for different products, creating severe friction before they even logged in.

  • The Application Layer: Behind the glass, converging distinct business units into a single mobile app meant dealing with mismatched backend databases operating on asynchronous technologies.

  • The Feature Layer: Essential tasks, such as viewing retirement statements, were locked behind complex web-view wrappers or physical paper mailers, leading to passive disengagement.

02 / JOURNEY IMPROVEMENTS: PHASE 01

Unifying the Feature Layer & Proving Native Architecture

To prove that distinct lines of business could coexist under one interface, I led the redesign of the mobile app's core architecture and self-service features.

Alongside a dedicated UX researcher, I planned and moderated qualitative sessions to map mental models around financial artifacts, revealing that users crave longitudinal context over isolated data snapshots, and highly resent intrusive administrative pop-ups.

RESEARCH / FOUR BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS

The artifact of comfort

Participants rarely read financial statements line by line, but treat them as vital emotional anchors and legal truth. “The idea of not knowing where my statements are makes me feel uneasy, and it’s strange because I never check my RRSP statements anyway.”

The artifact of comfort

Participants rarely read financial statements line by line, but treat them as vital emotional anchors and legal truth. “The idea of not knowing where my statements are makes me feel uneasy, and it’s strange because I never check my RRSP statements anyway.”

Snapshots vs. trajectories

Current balance figures served only as isolated data points. Users craved longitudinal context to evaluate progress against long-term life milestones. “What I enjoy about my yearly statements is seeing the whole picture of where I started and where I am now.”

Snapshots vs. trajectories

Current balance figures served only as isolated data points. Users craved longitudinal context to evaluate progress against long-term life milestones. “What I enjoy about my yearly statements is seeing the whole picture of where I started and where I am now.”

Task-focused tunnel vision

Intrusive full-screen interstitials promoting paperless delivery were rejected immediately. Users opened the app with a single, quick task in mind. “I would ignore this full-screen message because I’m just in it to check out my account.”

Task-focused tunnel vision

Intrusive full-screen interstitials promoting paperless delivery were rejected immediately. Users opened the app with a single, quick task in mind. “I would ignore this full-screen message because I’m just in it to check out my account.”

A secure personal filing cabinet

100% of participants navigated to profile settings or main menus to locate financial documents, associating statements with a secure personal filing cabinet.

A secure personal filing cabinet

100% of participants navigated to profile settings or main menus to locate financial documents, associating statements with a secure personal filing cabinet.

Design Approach & Solutions

Nudge, Don’t Push

I replaced aggressive modal popups with an ambient, contextual home screen nudge component. This component acted as a subtle, persistent prompt that connected statements to paperless opt-in workflows without blocking user intent.

Native Over Hybrid

I advocated to engineering leadership to drop hybrid web containers in favor of native Apple SwiftUI and Google Material Design architectures to ensure platform-level gesture support, biometrics, and offline accessibility.

Native PDF Handling

I expanded project scope to integrate native mobile OS document viewers, allowing members to view, share, air-drop, and securely store statement files directly on device.

03 / JOURNEY IMPROVEMENTS: PHASE 2

Creating a single entry point

The success of unifying the mobile app's feature architecture established a critical organizational precedent: disparate, complex business units could successfully harmonize under a single UX vision. Earning this strategic trust directly resulted in my selection to lead the UX for the organization's most complex integration yet: Manulife ID.

Manulife ID was a unified Single Sign-On (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) solution designed to replace all legacy credentials, giving customers a single, highly secure gateway to all their services.

RESEARCH / FOUR BEHAVIOURAL INSIGHTS

Nomenclature & User Transition

Guiding users to abandon legacy logins and link multiple existing accounts to a new Manulife ID required precise, frictionless communication. I designed exploratory interviews and usability tests to identify the exact mental models and terminology users associated with "linking" and "authenticating," ensuring the onboarding language resonated rather than confused.

Nomenclature & User Transition

Guiding users to abandon legacy logins and link multiple existing accounts to a new Manulife ID required precise, frictionless communication. I designed exploratory interviews and usability tests to identify the exact mental models and terminology users associated with "linking" and "authenticating," ensuring the onboarding language resonated rather than confused.

Security & Compliance Constraints

Every step of the ID creation and account-linking flow was designed under strict company and government regulatory compliance. I applied native SwiftUI and Material Design patterns to ensure the security mechanisms (like MFA token inputs) felt native to the device OS, reducing anxiety and cognitive load.

Security & Compliance Constraints

Every step of the ID creation and account-linking flow was designed under strict company and government regulatory compliance. I applied native SwiftUI and Material Design patterns to ensure the security mechanisms (like MFA token inputs) felt native to the device OS, reducing anxiety and cognitive load.

Lean Cross-Functional Alignment

The backend complexity of connecting mismatched business unit servers required tight synchronization. I established a lean collaboration model, acting as the structural bridge between communications, engineering, and product owners to align visual standards and user nomenclature across historically siloed teams.

Lean Cross-Functional Alignment

The backend complexity of connecting mismatched business unit servers required tight synchronization. I established a lean collaboration model, acting as the structural bridge between communications, engineering, and product owners to align visual standards and user nomenclature across historically siloed teams.

03 / BUSINESS IMPACT

Higher Adoption & User Ratings

2× adoption

ADOPTION & GROWTH

Doubled total native mobile adoption, converting passive account holders into active self-service users and high-intent advice leads.

1.7 to 4.5 stars

USER SENTIMENT

Modernizing the native architecture and journey flows drove an app store rating surge from 1.7 to 4.5 stars.

Alignment model

ENTERPRISE BLUEPRINT

The Manulife ID project solidified the native iOS and Android design standard for SSO and MFA across the organization, creating a proven, repeatable model for aligning UX, communications, and engineering across disparate business lines.

All selected work

© 2026 Ed Sanchez