Welcome back to our “Day in the Life” series! Here, you'll get to know some of the amazing people who make up Sun Life's global Design practice. Get an inside look into their daily activities and what they enjoy most about working in design at Sun Life.

In this installment, we connected with Kaitlin Laidlaw. Kaitlin is a Manager, Experience Design Activation and Performance in Waterloo, Canada. Read on to find out what a typical day looks like!

What is your title, and how would you describe your role?

My title is Manager, Experience Design Activation and Performance. I'm part of a strategy group helping people in Experience Design (XD) roles get the right tools and support to do their jobs. But more officially, I focus on the measurement and maturity side of XD. There's a common saying that you don't pay attention to what you don't track. So in my role, I develop and maintain measurement processes and tools. We use these tools to support the growth of XD across the organization. I evaluate and track our ways of working, the XD practice's maturity, and how we're developing and delivering end user experiences.

What are you working on right now?

Right now I have two major projects, both in tool development. One is a pilot of our XD Measurement Framework. It will provide a consistent structure to understand and track the metrics we use to assess end user experiences. We expect the pilot to continue for a few months. We've learned that there are many different ways that teams measure experience outcomes, which makes this project both fun and challenging. The other core project I'm working on is developing a maturity assessment for the XD practice. We want to use it to showcase strengths and pinpoint growth opportunities across the practice. We're assessing what makes an XD practice run effectively by asking XD practitioners and leaders to review the ways we work and the outcomes we achieve. The goal is to create a tool that grows with the practice, so we can use it for many years.

What do you like best about your role?

I like thinking about problems. I like being able to puzzle things out, understand why something is a problem, and why the suggested solution may or may not work. I also enjoy listening to others' perspectives and learning from their viewpoints.

How do you promote work-life balance in your career?

A few years before joining Sun Life, I worked in academia, which is well-known for poor work-life balance. There's this impression that you have freedom on how you work, but there can also be an expectation that you should respond to an email at 3am! That didn't work for me. So I left with the explicit goal of finding a position with better work-life balance. Transitioning to a traditional 9-5 job has been helpful. It took some adjusting, but having a set end time for my day gives me more time for what brings me joy. Apart from spending time with family and friends, I consider myself a collector of hobbies. Now I have time to collect even more.

If you had never worked another day in your life, what would you be doing?

If money was no object, I'd travel, live in different places, and visit friends across the US, Europe, and Canada. I could fill my days reading and making things. I love fiber arts, book binding, and so many other random crafts. I also have an ever-growing pile of books I've bought that I've yet to read. It'd be nice to dig in!