at&t wireless redesign
The Project
I was tasked with creating a Single Sign-On experience for AT&T with a customer impact to 100 million users. At the time of the discovery, it was clear that the first priority was to simplify the experience and reduce errors to further reduce user frustration and decrease calls to the help center.
The technological constraints of experience design were complicated by a back-end with multiple dependencies on legacy systems. And as AT&T is subject to a myriad of legal, regulatory and product restrictions, collaborating with these stakeholders while designing an ideal end-user experience was critical.
The Approach
Rather than create improved messaging to better address user error, the team addressed the cause of the error at its root and redesigned user paths, thus reducing error messages. During the 12-week design, build and QA process, we built user experiences and journey maps to identify common errors and consolidate redundant tasks.
Frequently redesigning things like login and registration are deceptively simple. And with a 100 million users logging on to get account details or combining various services into one unified experience, there was little room for error. That being the case, the immediate priority was simplification. Everything that could be consolidated was consolidated. Instead of creating a new “helpful” matrix of error messages, the priority was placed on creating error-proof pathways with lots of ways to have your questions answered.
The Satisfaction
Prior to beginning this project, I didn’t have a great deal of experience with design involving multiple legacy systems. Additionally, I really underestimated the complexity of a good login and single sign-on process. While much of the project work involved “Blue Sky” thinking, many of my ideas were constrained by what was technically possible. (If systems A and B could only talk to system C the world would be a better place. :-)). Regardless, this project represented a huge learning opportunity in the areas of project dynamics, regulatory issues, and backend workarounds.