Project № 20
Everything Everywhere
Four weeks. iPhone + Android apps + website for the UK's newly merged mobile network — rescued from previous agency misfires.
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Four weeks. iPhone + Android apps + website for the UK's newly merged mobile network — rescued from previous agency misfires.
In 2012, T-Mobile and Orange merged in the UK to form EE Limited (Everything Everywhere), the country's newly combined mobile network. The launch was imminent. The problem: the previous agency's design and development work was not going to make it. I joined via Heath Wallace (WPP Group) on a four-week rescue.
Under the exceptional leadership of Digital Project Manager Tim Sherrington, our job was to ship EE's iPhone and Android apps plus the accompanying website in time for launch — fast, polished, on brand.
The previous agency's output had enough design and development gaps to threaten the launch window. EE was the merged network of two of the UK's largest mobile carriers — every missed deadline would show up in the national press.
My job was to rebuild the interface layer fast enough to meet the launch window: UI/UX for iPhone and Android apps, plus the accompanying website. Feature set included data storage, phone locator, plan upgrades, and the kind of account management that new-brand customers expect to work on day one.
Alongside the shipping work, the team needed a design system — not a "design system" in the 2024 sense, but the early pattern library version: updated style guides, interaction specs, and visual consistency rules that the dev team could consume under pressure.
Inherited the work from the previous agency, identified what was recoverable, and mapped the gaps. Reset the scope to what could realistically ship in four weeks.
Delivered end-to-end UI and UX design for both the iPhone and Android apps — data storage, phone locator, plan upgrades, account management — with platform-appropriate affordances for each.
Updated and maintained the style guides, ensuring visual consistency across apps and website. Early-generation design-system discipline: shared components, shared vocabulary, shared review cadence.
Shipped the apps and website on schedule under Tim Sherrington's project management — whose organisational focus was the reason the team made the deadline at all.
Operational excellence under pressure. Tim's project management created a culture of focus that made hitting the launch window possible. — EE engagement reflection
Selected screens from the EE Android app and iPhone app design system.
The design work at EE was strong but the real story is the project management. Tim Sherrington's organisational prowess turned a rescue engagement into a controlled launch. I collaborated with Tim again years later at HSBC — that reputation travelled, and deservedly so.