TDS Website Consolidation Project

TDS and the Challenge

TDS is a telecommunications company based in Madison, WI. They provide their customers with internet, TV, home phone, and mobile services. With five independent websites, each for a different service line and a slightly different look and feel for each. This created much unnecessary confusion and tension for TDS’s customers and was difficult for the TDS team to manage. 

To reduce customer friction and the time and cost of maintenancing multiple sites, a new consolidated website needed to be created in a tight timeline dictated by software contracts.

Screens from the original websites.

The Project Plan

To meet the requirements within a tight timeline an air-tight project plan was essential. I drove the experience design timeline which also informed the UI design team on what to expect from the experience design team and how to develop their own timeline.

Dividing the required screens and components evenly into two week sprints allowed for project completion while fitting within their timeline and not overwhelming the design team. These sprints included two internal and two client reviews to confirm all requirements were met and to ensure team alignment.

Establishing the Information Architecture

The content from the five sites needed to be consolidated into a single experience that housed the same information and didn’t confuse their audiences or cause them to get lost on the site.

Teaming up with the lead content strategist, we established the key user journeys for each audience based on their entry point. We also provided abbreviated paths for users who are more experienced with the site or are further down the sales funnel.

Wireframing the Experience

Design System

To clearly map out and communicate the structural design of the site, the team needed to be aligned and ready to hit the ground running. To accomplish this I lead an offshore team of talented UX designers in developing an on-page experience that would delight all audiences visiting TDS’s website.

To ensure that all of the wires were cohesive and didn’t look like separate designers creating their own parts in their own way, I had the team utilize a wireframe design system boilerplate. This ensured that the team was using consistent fonts, sizing, and design standards when creating their wires.

Additionally, the team executed brilliantly despite the challenge of working across a significant time zone gap by conducting regular check-ins and live remote feedback with Figma comments.

Wireframing the Experience

Navigation and Homepage

The most critical piece to the experience was designing a navigation that was easy to use for all audiences on all devices. We took to designing this along with the homepage, which was the top entry point for each of their sites.

A couple of the key challenges were to design a 3-level navigation and an alternate version for the business experience.

Wireframing the Experience

Key Supporting Pages

Over the course of the next two sprints we focused on the other unique pages that were essential to the experience. These pages consisted of the product listing page, product detail page, search results page, a document submission form, local pages, and more. 

Throughout this process we aligned with the TDS team to ensure that we were meeting all requirements and business goals. We also held an open dialogue with the development team to ensure that the designs we proposed were feasible.

Wireframing the Experience

The Unexpected

While deep within the wireframing process we became confronted with the new information that their the search functionality would be extremely limited and the e-commerce experience would not be able to be updated at launch. This meant that the content portion of the site would need to be isolated from the e-commerce section, but would still need to function as a single experience.

To account for this, the team quickly pivoted by reworking all search scenarios to simplified experiences that aligned to their new requirements. The team also evaluated all entry points to the e-commerce portion of the site to ensure a smooth transition through the copy and design.

Wireframing the Experience

Generic Content Templates & Components

To ensure that the site would be scalable and flexible, we designed several generic content components that TDS could use to create new content and update existing content.

Additionally, not every necessary component was addressed in the screens designed thus far. We utilized the final sprint to address these outstanding components.

Hi-Fidelity Design & Development Handoff

After each sprint, the approved wireframes would be handed over to the design team. They elegantly applied the TDS’s branding with a modern update to bring validity and consumer confidence to the newly designed site.

Additionally, to allow the development team to begin structural setup of the site, the wires were prepped for the development team prior to hi-fi design approval.

Summary

My team excelled in developing a solution for combining TDS’s existing sites into a single experience that delights each of their audiences within their tight timeline despite unforeseen challenges and technological restraints.

Thank you for taking the time to review this case study. I would be happy to review this and additional work in more detail. There is a downloadable PDF version of this case study if you would like to have it for your records.

John Begley