Telstra

2018 | Role: Senior Designer

The challenge

With the rise of online shopping, consumers increasingly arrive in store already informed, having compared products, read reviews, and made near-decisions before they walk through the door. Telstra, Australia's largest telecommunications carrier, set out to completely reimagine their retail experience to meet that shift: moving from a traditional product-push store toward a space that addressed distinct customer needs, including product discovery, connected home, accessories, workshops, and tech support, within a single coherent journey.

The scale

This was a 6-month project involving interior design, branding, customer experience, research, and multiple design teams of 10 to 20 people each, working in close coordination. A purpose-built test store enabled three phases of research with real users, with each round of findings driving iteration across every team simultaneously. The final rollout reached all 360 Telstra stores across Australia.

My role

As one of two Senior Designers on the visual and digital design team, I developed concepts for digital and printed touchpoints across various zones of the store, including product comparison displays, wayfinding, feature explainers, and plan comparison graphics. I worked in short sprints alongside interior design and product teams, presenting concepts to partner agencies and stakeholders and iterating based on research findings and feedback at each phase.

Decision

The work required designing for a specific tension: customers who wanted to self-serve and explore independently, and customers who needed guidance and staff support. The digital touchpoints I worked on needed to serve both, clear enough for a customer browsing alone, contextual enough to support a staff-led conversation. Each sprint tightened the balance between information density and clarity, informed directly by what the test store research showed about where customers got lost or disengaged.

Outcome

The final store design integrated digital and physical touchpoints into a coherent customer journey across distinct zones, each serving a different need without fragmenting the overall experience. The new store format rolled out across Telstra's 360 locations in 2019.

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