Redesigning a telecom marketplace around customer decisions
Role
Company
Timeline
Discovery, Strategy & IA
MENA
2025
Scope of work
Product discovery · UX strategy · Information architecture · Competitor benchmarking · Customer journey mapping · Conversion optimisation · Usability validation
CONTEXT
The project focused on a mobile-first telecom marketplace combining device sales, digital products, SIM-related services, checkout and post-purchase support. The existing experience had accumulated structural, usability and trust issues across the full purchasing journey.
My scope covered regional and competitor research, user-needs definition, customer journey mapping for three personas, a detailed UX audit, information architecture, user flows and foundational wireframes. An external research team later evaluated the proposed experience with users, and the findings informed the next wireframe iteration.
CHALLENGE
The platform did not operate as a coherent commerce experience. Navigation, product discovery, marketplace offers, device configuration, payment, delivery and order management had developed as disconnected areas.
Customers could not reliably understand the range of available products, compare offers or determine the relationship between the telecom brand and external sellers. Important information about payment, delivery, returns and support often appeared too late, while filtering errors, unnecessary page reloads and unclear system states interrupted the purchase journey. The SIM flow also asked customers to select a number before they had enough information to compare the available offer.
The challenge was broader than redesigning individual screens. The platform required a new structure for helping customers discover, evaluate and purchase complex products while addressing regional expectations around trust, payment and service support.
How might we reorganise a fragmented telecom marketplace into a clear, trustworthy purchase journey that supports both confident and less-experienced customers?
DISCOVERY
The discovery focused on understanding how customers in the region evaluate complex technology purchases, which e-commerce patterns already felt familiar, and where the existing platform failed to support those expectations.
An extensive benchmark analysis covered regional telecom providers, marketplaces, and established e-commerce platforms. AI-supported workflows accelerated the comparison and synthesis of a large volume of material, while all findings and resulting design implications were manually reviewed.
Regional desk research highlighted the importance of seller credibility, local payment methods, delivery transparency, return policies, and accessible customer support. These findings informed user needs and customer journey maps for three personas with different levels of technical knowledge and purchase certainty.
A detailed heuristic and e-commerce audit then examined homepage and search, product listings, device purchase, SIM sales, checkout, and order management. I used Figma MCP to place and format hundreds of structured audit notes, including contextual explanations, severity levels, supporting guidelines, and recommendations. This reduced repetitive documentation work and left more time for analysis and prioritisation.
The evidence showed that the platform needed to support both direct search and guided discovery, explain technical products through customer needs, and build trust before users reached checkout.
Three findings shaped the direction:
Product discovery needed to support both direct search and guided browsing.
Customers required contextual guidance based on intended use, not only technical specifications.
Trust information had to be integrated into product evaluation rather than postponed until checkout.
SOLUTION
☞ Organise the platform around customer decisions
The information architecture and sitemap were redesigned to clarify the relationship between product categories, digital services, marketplace offers, customer accounts and post-purchase functions.
The proposed structure reduced reliance on search and created clearer paths for customers who wanted to browse by category, brand or intended use. Account and support functions were separated from product discovery, while orders and post-purchase services became easier to locate.
This structure became the foundation for the navigation model, content hierarchy and redesigned user flows.
☞ Move from catalogue browsing to guided discovery
The product experience was reorganised to help customers narrow a large and technically complex offer.
Purpose-based categories such as gaming, business or creative work were introduced alongside conventional brand and specification filters. Product cards were structured around the information customers needed for comparison, including price, key specifications, ratings, seller information and payment relevance.
Search, autocomplete, category navigation, filters and no-results recovery were treated as parts of one discovery system rather than separate features.
☞ Build confidence before checkout
The redesign brought trust and logistical information closer to the decisions it affected.
Seller relationships, reviews, delivery estimates, return conditions, payment methods and support access were made visible during product evaluation. The marketplace model required particular clarification because different sellers offering the same item at different prices could otherwise appear suspicious rather than competitive.
The proposed flows also reflected local payment expectations, including mobile wallets and Cash on Delivery, instead of relying only on generic international payment patterns.
☞ Create validation-ready purchase flows
User flows were redesigned across product discovery, device configuration, SIM selection, cart, checkout and order management.
The SIM purchase sequence was reordered around the information customers needed at each stage:
Product comparison → Tier selection → Number selection → Checkout
Low-fidelity wireframes translated the architecture and flows into the main mobile screens. They defined navigation behaviour, content hierarchy, comparison logic, form behaviour, validation, loading feedback, purchase summaries and post-purchase actions.
The wireframes were then evaluated by an external research team in five remote mobile sessions with three existing users and two non-users. The research used semi-structured exploration to examine customer expectations and spontaneous reactions across homepage, search, listing, product details, cart and checkout.
The findings led to a further wireframe iteration, particularly around homepage hierarchy, category visibility, brand-led navigation, marketplace credibility, comparison controls, return-policy clarity and local payment methods.
OUTCOMES
Delivered outcomes
Proposed information architecture and sitemap connecting discovery, commerce, account and post-purchase areas.
Customer journey maps for three personas documenting goals, decisions, uncertainties and purchase barriers.
Detailed severity-based UX audit with annotated findings and implementation guidance.
Redesigned end-to-end user flows for device purchase, SIM selection, checkout and order management.
Validation-ready mobile wireframes covering the main marketplace screens and transactional journeys.
Executive recommendations for discovery, comparison, trust, payment, accessibility, performance and post-purchase support.
AI-supported research and audit documentation workflow, reducing repetitive work and speeding up the preparation of hundreds of detailed Figma findings.
REFLECTION
The main tension in this project was between presenting a broad product catalogue and helping customers make confident decisions within it.
Telecom e-commerce involves more than displaying inventory. Customers may need to understand devices, service tiers, sellers, payment methods and delivery conditions within one journey. The work changed how I approach marketplace design: information architecture should reflect the sequence in which customers build understanding and trust, not the way products and services are organised internally.
