/ AT&T Unlimited Your Way (TM) Launch
Leading Through Ambiguity
AT&T Unlimited Your Way (TM) Product Launch 2020
“Michelle Schultz has taken on more responsibility in 2020 and has done an amazing job in this new role in mentoring Jr. designers and leading the upper funnel work. She is fiercely resourceful and does not let a lack of information or direction stop her from driving a project. This is a consistent pattern for her, and she exemplified it again this year with the key and complex UWY initiative.”
I overcame every hurdle and grew immensely during this project.
Through the challenges I was able to show design leadership while maintaining responsibilities as an individual contributor.
PRODUCT: Marketing derived a pricing plan that allowed the customer to have different plans for different lines on the account. Meaning one line can have the basic Unlimited plan while another line can have the premium package. UX Design delivered digital innovation by focusing on the customer value of the new plan product & services. Discovered customer needs, architected solutions, while supporting the business strategy.
THE PROBLEM TO SOLVE
For the customer, the problem is being limited in options for multiple line account holders. This limitation is for both new and existing customers. In launching this new product, how do we align with where customer expect to find plan pricing and options, what information is needed to help them explore and decide on a plan. Once a decision is made how do we create an experience that shows them the more lines you have the more you save. Amplify the savings, benefits, and confirm “buy now” and “future” billing payments.
SCOPE: Our team was tasked with adopting the concepts generated from our Customer Experience team, refine entry points, customer journeys, exploring options, and aiding in the decision.
My area of focus was the intermediary pages from the navigation, plan pricing component, collect the desired lines and pass the information down stream. Align with the buy-flow, ensure continuity and consistency between channels.
Team
UX Sr. Lead Design
UX Lead Design
Content Writer
User Researcher
Sr. Product Manager
Product Owner
Lead Development Engineer
Technical Architect
Scrum Master
Business teams comprised of many stakeholders across the business properties. This includes Sales, Support, Small Business and Account Services.
My Role and Then Some
Senior Lead UX Design
I bridged the gap between multidisciplinary teams in understanding scope, roles and responsibilities by bringing together business, product, engineering, design, content, and merchandising. This included working sessions, design jams, and product storytelling. I connected the different acquisitions channels to ensure stakeholder goals and success metrics.
I led the user research testing plan and worked closely with our Usability Research Team. This resulted in the project being delivered on time, meeting requirements, and high quality of design artifacts.
My objective was to identified customer needs, pain points, business goals, and established requirements from a product level. I provided coverage for a design team that focused on the information architect, customer journeys, workflows , visual design and interactions mapping back to customer’s behaviors and expectations. I led the explore, learning part of the experience and partnered with the purchase lead to create a comprehensive end to end experience.
The deliverables included research, analytics, site audit, comparative analysis, explorations, user testing & research navigation brief, design specification artifacts, story requirements for delivery.
Vision
Make the plan pricing and construct work for our customers.
Marketing derived a pricing plan that allowed the customer to have different plans for different lines on the account. Meaning one line can have the basic Unlimited plan while another line can have the premium package.
Our channel vision was to create a plan pricing component that provided the customer the ability to see how mixing the different plan options could work for them, play with the tool and then make a decision to move on to the next step.
Animation of the design vision telling the story of how an account have a different plan for each line.
Definition
After aligning with product on a focused problem statement, I brought together a cross-functional team of Design, Product, Tech, and relevant stakeholders to explore ideas and identify technical and business constraints. Through a series of working sessions, I facilitate sketching high-level, low-fidelity ideas for broad exploration, synthesizing and validating concepts, and rapid iteration to accelerate the design process.
Collaborating with Sprint Teams
As soon as flow concepts were baked enough to communicate intent; I provided leadership, facilitating the team to share wires into pre-grooming sessions for feedback and alignment with engineers and product managers. This led to a deeper dive into technical and enterprise constraints that had not yet surfaced. I drove conversations and use solid judgement to recommend design trade-offs that stay true to the strategic intent while reducing complexity. As we moved forward in the design process and raise the level of fidelity, I communicated on a cadence with product and tech partners, keeping them informed while delivering designs grounded in reality and provided support throughout the build cycle.
Iteration 1 - project release
Delivering buildable designs
We delivered pixel perfect annotated screens and design specs within a visual language system, and extended the pattern library with new usage definitions.
Driving Product Development
I took a bird's eye view to connect the dots and bring issues to light early. Using this broad point of view combined with our data learnings, I provided recommendations to influence the product roadmap. I partnered with cross-functional team members to constantly refine processes for better collaboration and smoother hand-offs.
Looking back
A competitive complicated new product was designed with cohesion across channels and multiple work flows. Through my leadership team goals were met and exceeded leadership pillars; even during a pandemic.
New to my role as a Sr.Lead for UX design, I showed how I can organize, proactively reach across the organization, gather insight, and support my design team while creating a space for creativity and solutions.
What didn’t go so well
Some customers did leave the purchase transaction with some confusion on pricing and what their total monthly bill would be. This friction point has led to the next iteration of features & capabilities for 2021 initiatives.
Interested in more?
View other samples showcasing my range of skills. How UX design is an integral part of the process, influences business goals, and adding customer value.