Sunlife Direct Case Study

Sun Life Financial was awarded the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP), an initiative supporting over 3 million Canadians in accessing dental care.

To support this rollout, we redesigned the provider platform—enabling healthcare professionals to efficiently manage enrollment, claims, eligibility checks, and program updates.

CLIENT
Sunlife

ROLE
Senior UX Designer (Web)
Led UX strategy and design execution for core platform experiences.

The Challenge

We were tasked with redesigning an existing, complex platform under strict constraints:

  • No new backend service calls could be introduced
  • Legacy architecture had to remain intact
  • The experience needed to be:
    • Fully responsive
    • AAA accessible
    • Scalable for CDCP and future programs

The challenge was to deliver a modern, intuitive experience without changing the underlying system.

Approach

1. Reframing the Information Architecture

We began with a full audit of the platform:

  • Conducted a complete inventory of existing pages
  • Identified structural inconsistencies and navigation friction

To validate user mental models, we facilitated a card sorting exercise with:

  • Healthcare administrators
  • Active platform users

Outcome:

  • Revealed how users naturally grouped tasks and information
  • Highlighted misalignment between system structure and user expectations

2. Synthesizing Insights

We translated research into actionable structure:

  • Clustered results using color-coded groupings
  • Identified emerging patterns across workflows
  • Defined clearer navigation hierarchies and content groupings

This enabled a shift from a system-driven IA → user-centered IA

Previous state
New state

Redesigning Core Experiences (Coverage Lookup)

Problem

Analytics showed the coverage lookup tool was one of the most critical features.

However, the existing experience:

  • Required navigating to a separate results page
  • Used collapsible drawers for each result
  • Forced users to open multiple items to find key details

This created:

  • High interaction cost
  • Slower task completion
  • Friction in high-frequency workflows

Design Strategy

We focused on:

  • Reducing steps to access key information
  • Improving scanability and data visibility
  • Designing for scalability across programs

Key changes:

  • Consolidated results into a more accessible, single-view format
  • Reduced reliance on hidden interactions (e.g., drawers)
  • Prioritized frequently accessed data points upfront

Solution

The redesigned experience delivered:

  • A streamlined navigation structure aligned with user mental models
  • A mobile-first, responsive interface
  • AAA accessibility compliance across the platform
  • A scalable foundation supporting both CDCP and future services

Key Takeaways

  • Designing within constraints requires system-aware creativity, not just ideal solutions
  • Information architecture is the backbone of complex platforms
  • Small interaction changes (like reducing clicks) can drive significant usability gains
  • Scalability should be designed early—even when systems can’t yet support it fully

Impact

  • Reduced friction in high-frequency tasks like coverage lookup
  • Improved efficiency for healthcare providers managing patient workflows
  • Established a future-ready UX foundation within legacy constraint