Research and e2e Detailed Design for new capabilities in a long-term platform migration
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Moving internally
A fast-growing platform migration program of work had a few positions open, so after my first year at Optus within the Prepaid portfolio I expressed an interest in moving internally.
While working in Prepaid I designed mostly for the entry door of the purchase journey (discovery pages, listing pages, product pages), so I was very excited to move to the checkout funnel—a great opportunity to make a different impact for the next 12 months at Optus.
The program had a roadmap of capabilities to enable any portfolio in the business to build custom checkout experiences with speed to market. I was placed in Payments, owning the e2e UX of Outright payments—enabling users to purchase devices without a telco plan—including tablets and watches.
I worked on both a strategic view for this capability as well as the tactical MVP that went live in June 2023—desired to quickly switch on the capability and collect market insights, as well as create some foundations for downstream systems that aligned with the long-term website vision and roadmap of capabilities.
Some of the flows within the outright digital purchase journey.
Outright was a complex and exciting project that positioned Optus ahead of its competitors in what it delivered. It was highly visible by the senior leadership team, which allowed me to often present in SLT forums, Design Council meetings, stakeholder walk-throughs for impact assessment as well as the weekly Peer Review sessions.
Aside from working through design iterations and user testing, my responsibilities included facilitating conversation between POs, copywriters and Go To Market to furnish the UI before preparing documentation for Legal approval and developer handover. After design delivery I maintained an active supporting role within a team of external consultants contracted to deliver the capability, and continued in that role until UAT was completed.
The payment step was one of the core challenges in the journey, which I iterated on through several rounds of usability testing.
My process in this project included:
— Generative research
— Stakeholder interviews for requirements gathering and business processes review
— Competitors analysis
— Weekly workshops (with SMEs, Architects, Product & Sales, Digital Product Managers and initiative owners)
— Engagement with Copywriters and Accessibility
— Recruiting for and conducting User Testing
— Liaising with Go To Market and Legal from a UX perspective
— Lastly, developer handover and participation in UAT
— Stakeholder interviews for requirements gathering and business processes review
— Competitors analysis
— Weekly workshops (with SMEs, Architects, Product & Sales, Digital Product Managers and initiative owners)
— Engagement with Copywriters and Accessibility
— Recruiting for and conducting User Testing
— Liaising with Go To Market and Legal from a UX perspective
— Lastly, developer handover and participation in UAT
See below some examples of how I communicate my design process:
Example of UT reporting and findings documentation above, and below a walk-through session with Legal prior to formal submission for review in document format.
Impact overview
In terms of scope, delivering Outright went far beyond updating the payment step. It impacted almost all steps in the existing checkout journey, with updated UX and new UI being required for:
— The product page
— The plan-selection step
— Cart
— The phone number selection step
— The delivery step
— As expected, the payment page
— The order summary page
— And its successor, the order confirmation page
— The plan-selection step
— Cart
— The phone number selection step
— The delivery step
— As expected, the payment page
— The order summary page
— And its successor, the order confirmation page
In addition to the checkout experience, the team and I also had to introduce new post-purchase journeys not traditionally part of the telco space, including:
— A new set of email touch-points (outright invoicing, multi-parcel delivery)
— A new reverse-logistics journey (refund of items paid in full)
— And brand new integration with fraud prevention payment APIs.
— A new reverse-logistics journey (refund of items paid in full)
— And brand new integration with fraud prevention payment APIs.
In terms of value, the delivery of Outright as a payment term brought much more flexibility around payment options than simply paying for a device upfront. I would be thrilled to give some examples in person over a coffee while we discuss how my skillset can help you achieve a strategic vision for your product—send me an email.
