Re-contracting checkout

The problem

Re-contracting at Telstra was a 12-screen, desktop-only maze that treated every existing customer like a new one. No plan details carried through, authentication happened multiple times, and customers had to re-enter information the business already held. The brief was to replace it with a shorter, mobile-first, fully authenticated flow, while also moving customers off legacy plans Telstra no longer supported.

What I did

Senior UX on a small cross-functional team. Recruited participants, wrote the moderation guide, built the prototype, ran the tech, moderated all ten sessions, and did the synthesis. Defined the flow and interaction model, and worked closely with visual design and front-end on high-fidelity detail and implementation.

Exploration

Why the old flow failed

The complexity wasn't designed, it accumulated. Each system dependency had become a screen. Customers had to re-authenticate mid-flow, agree to terms they'd already accepted, and enter details the business already held. Prior attempts had failed by simplifying the UI without touching the underlying system boundaries. We had to do both.

Two shopping decisions, not one

Research confirmed that plan selection is a significant purchase decision, made harder by the fact that some customers were being moved off legacy plans onto current ones. That's not a neutral transaction. Device configuration is a different kind of decision entirely: model, colour, memory, payment term, with different options per device line. The design had to hold both without either collapsing into the other.

Who we were designing for

Any customer approaching the end of a plan, whether they wanted a new phone, a new plan, or neither. The flow had to work without assuming a purchase. Research also confirmed the edges of the addressable audience: some customers weren't coming back to Telstra regardless, loyalty to a competitor, price sensitivity that no incentive could bridge. The design wasn't for them.

UX process

The research

Recruited participants, wrote the moderation guide, built the prototype, ran the tech, moderated all ten sessions, and did the synthesis. The sessions were specific. Customers who had bought a device from Telstra before came in plan-first; customers who hadn't wanted to see the phones first. The design had to pick one order. We went plan-first: this was a renewal context, not a shopping trip, and the commercial goal supported it.

Other findings that shaped the design directly: nobody read the T&Cs (so the CIS link structure had to carry that weight without getting in the way), add-ons generated little interest, attention dropped off sharply by the time device returns came up, and customers strongly preferred scrolling over paginated steps. That last one drove the single-screen approach.

Getting to a handful of screens

The first pass was six or seven steps. Policy reviews and iteration got the happy path to two or three screens on mobile. Key moves: letting customers choose which service to upgrade (previously unavailable), consolidating device, plan, and accessories into one mobile-optimised screen, and surfacing a running cost so nothing landed as a surprise.

Managing the legal surface

Compliance requirements couldn't be negotiated away, but the renewal context allowed some restructuring. The CIS links and accordion structure were the outcome of that negotiation: detail accessible at the right moment, not buried, but not blocking the decision either.

Integrating what had always been separate

Lease returns were pulled inline. The full device catalogue was included, Picasso plans, Buy and Lease options, none of which had appeared together before. The catalogue boundaries weren't confirmed until late, which meant some of this was designed in a vacuum and revised when constraints finally landed.

Final design

A checkout that knows who you are

Select the service to upgrade. Authenticated customer data carries through. Plan options surface with enough detail to compare without overwhelming, with the full Critical Information Summary a tap away for anyone who wants it. Device configuration, model, colour, memory, payment term, lives in one place with costs updating in real time. Lease returns handled inline. Fewer fields, improved address lookup. Worked on mobile and desktop.

Two decisions, one screen

Plan selection and device configuration are genuinely different shopping behaviours. The design kept them distinct but adjacent, with progressive disclosure doing the work of keeping the page from becoming exhausting. The accordions weren't a tidy layout choice: they were the negotiated outcome of holding commercial goals, compliance requirements, and usability in the same place. The detail was there. Most people didn't need it.

What happened

Significantly shorter journey, viable across devices. Authentication reduced fraud. A single platform path reduced back-of-house handling. Teams inherited a shared blueprint of interaction rules and behaviours for future work.

What I learned

The unlocks came from getting identity, catalogue, and fulfilment in the same room before design started, not during. Every system that hadn't talked to the others was a screen waiting to happen. The catalogue constraints arriving late cost rework that earlier pressure would have avoided.

What I'd do differently: push harder earlier to get a definitive answer on catalogue constraints. Too much of that design was done without knowing what could actually be pulled in. A slower start on that piece would have been cheaper than the rework.

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