Evolving a multi-brand digital ecosystem from 2022 to 2025.

  • Role: Junior experience designer to senior experience designer

  • Client: Verizon Value Brands (Visible, Total Wireless, Straight Talk, TracFone, Simple Mobile)

  • Timeline: ~4 years (long-running, evolving partnership)

  • Team: Cross-functional (design, product, engineering, research, copy, marketing)

  • Scope: Marketing experiences, shop & activation, cart & checkout, manage, experimentation, audits, system design, governance

Context & Constraints

This engagement was defined by continuous change:

  • Work expanded from upper-funnel marketing pages into lower-funnel UX (shop, cart, checkout, activation, manage)

  • Teams frequently changed due to resourcing, attrition, and re-orgs.

  • Timelines were often compressed, with shifting requirements mid-sprint.

  • Work needed to scale across multiple brands with different needs — and later, into a white-label model.

The Challenge

What began as short-term marketing support for a single brand (Visible) evolved into a multi-year effort to modernize, scale, and govern digital experiences across Verizon’s Value Brands — while adapting to shifting priorities, organizational change, aggressive timelines, and growing technical complexity.

The core challenge:
How do you deliver value consistently while the scope, brands, teams, and business goals are constantly changing?

My Role & Ownership

Over four years, my role evolved significantly:

  • Started as a hands-on designer supporting Visible’s marketing pages.

  • Grew into a domain expert across shop, activation, and manage experiences.

  • Became a UX lead and stabilizing force during periods of ambiguity and team change.

  • Took ownership of complex flows (cart, checkout, activation, annual plans & gifitng).

  • Led process design, documentation, and system organization to keep work moving at scale.

  • Acted as a subject-matter expert and mentor for new team members.

Key Decisions

1. Invest in Structure When Things Are Ambiguous

When projects were chaotic or under-defined, I consistently leaned into:

  • Audits before design

  • Clear documentation and file organization

  • Reusable templates and trackers

This created momentum when clarity was otherwise missing.

2. Balance Production with Consulting Value

While much of the work was delivery-heavy, I consistently:

  • Offered strategic alternatives alongside requested solutions

  • Logged improvement ideas into backlogs

  • Used research and testing to challenge assumption

3. Lead Without Formal Authority

In moments of team turnover or leadership gaps, I:

  • Took on presentation and facilitation responsibilities

  • Helped onboard new designers and partners

  • Acted as a knowledge bridge between past and current work

The Solution

Rather than a single artifact, the outcome was a durable, scalable design approach across Verizon Value Brands:

  • Redesigned and refined dozens of marketing, shop, activation, and manage pages.

  • Established repeatable UX processes across research, design, testing, and delivery.

  • Created system-level documentation and component strategies.

  • Enabled future brand launches through white-label and shared-system thinking.

Total Wireless white label design

Bring your own phone shop flow

Cart to checkout

Landing page designs

Progressive checkout

Order confirmation

Visible - Help Center

Visible - How to Switch

Visible - Free Trial

Total Wireless - Bring Your Own Phone

Total Wireless - CSR Landing Page

Straight Talk - Home Internet

Tracfone - Moto g 5G deal

PDP

AI chat window

Number porting form

Plans first shop flow

Sample A/B testing results

Outcomes & Impact

  • Supported the growth of the Value Brands account from single-brand support to a multi-brand, multi-year engagement.

  • Delivered high-risk, high-complexity UX flows under tight timelines.

  • Helped establish internal credibility around UX rigor, testing, and ethics (dark patterns).

  • Contributed to work recognized externally, including Visible’s JP Power award.

Reflection

This engagement shaped how I work today:

  • I learned how to create clarity in ambiguity.

  • I became deeply invested in process design and systems thinking.

  • I learned to lead through influence, not title.

  • I gained resilience working in long-running, high-pressure environments — and clarity about the conditions where I do my best work.

“Sophie can be trusted to handle all aspects of experience design and has enabled the strong growth of the Verizon Value Brands account from the very beginning.”

— Brian Kennedy (Account Lead)
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