CASE STUDY / SUN LIFE
Sun Life: Stewarding Structure for the Public Web Ecosystem
Role: Senior UX Designer & Acting Squad Lead
Focus: Systems Thinking, Information Architecture, Operational Governance, Research Scaling with AI
As a Senior UX Designer, I acted as a “Steward of Structure” to align cross-functional stakeholders and shift public web experiences from ad-hoc outputs to a scalable, outcome-focused system. The public website hosts a complex ecosystem of user journeys designed to support various organizational objectives. By moving away from isolated component design and establishing a holistic, intent-driven framework, we drastically reduced cognitive fatigue and drove measurable business impact.
01 / THE CORE PROBLEM
The “Wall of Inconsistency”
The public web experience was heavily fragmented, shaped by competing priorities across marketing, SEO, product, and publishing teams operating in silos. Because tasks were handled on a reactive, case-by-case basis, the platform accumulated substantial layout debt, visual “deviations,” and disjointed customer journeys. Without an overarching structural standard, layout and content decisions were routinely debated based on subjective opinion rather than measurable user intent and business OKRs.
Through unmoderated testing, live A/B testing, and benchmarking, the structural friction points became glaringly obvious:
Support & Triage Dead Ends: Users struggled to find basic support information related to accounts, coverage, and claims; navigation felt confusing and inefficient, forcing users to search and guess.
Decision Paralysis: Placing multiple purchase paths (CTAs) on dense pages caused users to click around aimlessly, struggling to figure out their next step.
Lost Urgency: Critical, time-sensitive details were being entirely missed by 86% of users when buried in standard body text.
Trust Erosion: Repeating identical information across multiple parts of a page to “ensure visibility” backfired, making the experience feel “scammy” and suspicious to users.
AUDIT / FOUR SYSTEMIC FRICTION POINTS
02 / THE PROCESS & STRATEGIC TRADE-OFFS
From reactive outputs to living templates
Rather than delivering another round of isolated page redesigns, I treated design assets as living operational frameworks. I introduced an intake triage model that aligned multidisciplinary stakeholders around measurable customer intent and OKRs rather than subjective aesthetics.
I structured early discovery sessions with multidisciplinary stakeholders to align competing requirements before pushing pixels. We tackled core structural friction points head-on—such as balancing high-converting sales pathways against informational educational content—and codified layout constraints to safeguard SEO, accessibility, and marketing flexibility.
Modernizing the Support Journey & Flattening IA
To ensure clients could quickly get support for common issues, we shifted to a journey-based approach that prioritized self-serve opportunities as the first line of triage. I streamlined the Information Architecture (IA), reducing the number of clicks and simplifying navigation for faster access to key support content. We standardized repeatable Helios components (like buttons, links, and CTAs) to decrease cognitive load and refined microcopy on routing pages to eliminate ambiguity.
Defining the “Block” Layer for Campaigns
For conversion pages, we addressed the gap in atomic design systems by introducing “Blocks”—structured modules built around specific business purposes. I mapped these Blocks to a strict, predictable page anatomy: Header, Lead, Body, Tail, and Footer. This guaranteed a consistent flow that guided users seamlessly from consideration toward conversion using a progressive disclosure framework.
PAGE ANATOMY
01 / Header — orientation and navigation
02 / Lead — core proposition and primary action
03 / Body — proof, progressive disclosure, comparison
04 / Tail — related pathways and advisor contact
05 / Footer — legal, compliance, and utilities
Rather than handing off finished screens into a void, I maintained cross-functional touchpoints throughout testing and iteration, culminating in dedicated walkthroughs where I guided writers, publishers, and front-end developers through component behavior in AEM and Helios design systems.
SYSTEM MAP / DELIVERY SEQUENCE
03 / RESEARCH-DRIVEN OPTIMIZATION
Designing around intent, momentum, and urgency
Every structural decision was grounded in rigorous qualitative and quantitative research, allowing us to validate our systemic changes.
Strategic Friction & Triage
We shifted from inline links to a single, dominant hero CTA that routed users to a dedicated triage page. This acted as a necessary “cognitive pause,” forcing users to explicitly declare their intent and cleanly separating real buyers from support seekers.
Embedding Conversion Momentum
We placed quote inputs directly within the landing flow rather than routing users to external multi-step forms. Participants strongly preferred having immediate access to pricing, which accelerated critical discovery tasks by 35%.
The Psychology of Urgency
We moved time-sensitive urgency messaging out of the body text and into highly visible priority banners directly below the hero section. Furthermore, user feedback revealed that framing a discount as a “lifetime discount” was significantly more compelling and memorable than a flat “5%” frame.
OPTIMIZATION / INTENT TO MOMENTUM
04 / SCALING RESEARCH WITH AI
Turning qualitative feedback into confident recommendations
To validate these structural changes, we needed to quantify qualitative feedback rapidly. I integrated “Sun Life Ask AI” into our research workflow, allowing us to process data from 90 users across 6 tests and 4 tasks. By using the tool for transcript mining and complex sentiment analysis, we extracted hidden pain points and calculated precise improvement scores (SEQ/SUM) comparing the live site to our prototypes, enabling us to present confident, data-backed recommendations to leadership.
90
USERS
6
TESTS
4
TASKS
RESEARCH PIPELINE / ASK AI
05 / THE SOLUTION & BUSINESS IMPACT
Guardrails, not handcuffs
By establishing vetted master templates as “guardrails, not handcuffs,” we gave squads the modular flexibility needed to run targeted campaigns while safeguarding systemic accessibility and brand integrity.
+34 NPS points
CUSTOMER PERCEPTION
Redesigning the homepage and clarifying the information architecture directly drove a +34 NPS point shift, taking the score from −7 to +27.
+0.59 ease of use
TASK PERFORMANCE
Usability benchmarks proved that structured content chunking and modernized support journeys delivered a +0.59 lift in ease of use and navigation alongside a +0.50 lift in visual scannability.
3.5% CTR
SYSTEMIC DELIVERY / 75% RELATIVE LIFT
Replacing one-off page debt with modular block systems drastically accelerated publishing turnaround. Standardized page layouts achieved a 3.5% CTR, generating a 75% relative lift over legacy text-dense variants.
$300,484
PROJECTED RETURN / 12 MONTHS
Projected $300,484 in 12-month net returns via a 20% increase in visit-to-lead conversion ratios.
© 2026 Ed Sanchez