Project № 21
Vodafone
Turning a napkin sketch into an in-store kiosk the Vodafone CEO approved in the room.
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Turning a napkin sketch into an in-store kiosk the Vodafone CEO approved in the room.
PrismaStar was a startup with a patented filtering, sorting and finding algorithm. Vodafone UK had already been impressed by the performance of the engine on the web. The pitch on the table: could this same technology live inside Vodafone retail stores as an interactive kiosk that walked customers through the right phone for their needs?
I led the design for that pitch and everything that followed. Crafting a compelling user experience that would first win PrismaStar's own leadership team, then win the Vodafone CEO, then survive a four-week implementation window.
The first battle was internal. PrismaStar's Managing Director and Commercial Director initially believed a simple sketch would be enough to pitch the idea to Vodafone. I had to convince them that a CEO-level retail decision would not be made off a napkin — it would be made off a visually compelling, user-focused presentation that showed the Vodafone panel what the in-store experience would actually feel like.
Once I had the leadership team's buy-in, the second battle was the pitch itself. The Vodafone CEO and design director were in the room in London. We had one shot.
And then, the third battle: a four-week implementation window for a physical kiosk. Hardware coordination with Fujitsu. Software integration with PrismaStar's engineering team. Design consistency against Vodafone brand standards. A production-ready kiosk live in Vodafone stores across the UK.
No room for slippage. No room for a sketch.
Made the case to PrismaStar's leadership that a pixel-perfect visual pitch was the difference between winning and losing. Got the budget, got the time, got the green light.
Partnered with Matt Taylor, PrismaStar's CTO, to translate the filtering engine into an end-to-end retail experience — from customer arrival at the kiosk to generating a reference code to handing off to a Vodafone customer service rep for purchase.
Designed the UX and UI in full fidelity. Detailed sketches for the customer journey, prototypes for the CEO to interact with, a presentation that treated the pitch like a product launch. Delivered at Vodafone's London HQ.
Acted as de facto Design & Creative Director for the implementation. Coordinated Fujitsu hardware, PrismaStar software, a design agency scaling production, and the Vodafone brand team — all while the four-week clock ran down.
The CEO and design director were impressed. The project was approved with a four-week implementation timeline. — Vodafone London HQ pitch, 2011
Selected UI screens from the shipped Vodafone in-store kiosk — and the UX sketches that shaped the journey.
Customer feedback after launch, cited by the PrismaStar leadership team.
Every designer remembers the first time they had to convince their own leadership that the value of UI/UX was worth the investment. This was mine. Persuading PrismaStar's MD and Commercial Director to take a polished pitch into Vodafone instead of a napkin was the move that made everything else possible — the CEO's approval, the four-week delivery, the live kiosks in London.
This one sits with me. Matt Taylor was the CTO who engineered it all; read his testimonial on LinkedIn →