+play

Post MVP — Design & Experience Reset
Verizon's +play subscription ecosystem. A platform designed as a single destination to discover, activate & manage digital subscriptions. 

I joined as an Experience Design Director post-MVP to lead an ambitious redesign with a focus on simplifying the experience, reducing friction, scaling and aligning the platform with a new visual language.

Overview

The initial phase focused on setting direction and securing alignment.

My role spanned design direction, experience design, and strategy — shaping the system while defining a new visual language and refining the end-to-end experience.

After a new visual direction was created in our 'Northstar' explortions, I then worked alongside two other experience designers, to establish the foundation for how +play would evolve — visually, structurally, functionally and behaviorally. After, the team expanded in size to carry the work forward.

Designing for different stages

To guide design decisions, we defined three customer types shaped by intent and level of engagement — from first-time activation to active subscription management. 

New Customer: Is encountering +play for the first time, often through an Unlimited plan benefit. They are orienting themselves and assessing what +play offers. Need: Clear value and an easy path to activate included benefits without confusion.

Default Customer: An existing Verizon customer who is aware of +play but has not yet adopted it as their primary subscription management tool. Need: A simple explanation of what +play is, visible savings, and confidence that it will simplify their subscriptions.

Mature Customer: An active +play user who already manages multiple subscriptions within the platform and is familiar with how it works. Need: Efficient control, transparent billing, and opportunities to discover or optimize subscriptions.

Challenge: Unify the design language

The MVP validated the concept. Beta was the next phase — expanding to a wider audience and proving +play could scale.

As +play expanded — more partners, more services — the structure started to show cracks. Enrollment required too many steps. Flows felt disconnected. Tiles were large and the layout should surface more content. What worked for a handful of partners wouldn't scale to dozens.

Minimizing to maximize. This wasn't about adding features. It was about optimizing the flow and bringing clarity to a platform outgrowing its structure.

Three of us (myself, Hanna, Jeremy) had one month. Thanksgiving to New Year. Verizon was rolling out a new design system at the same time, so +play needed to align while solving for growth. The goal: simplify enrollment, unify the experience, and create a foundation for a system that could scale.

Before (MVP) and After

Design reset.

You might think redesigning tiles would be easy. It wasn't. Legal, stakeholders, and engineering all had requirements. Stakeholders felt providing context would help users make decisions. In theory, yes. But in practice it created visual density and increased cognitive load.

During an 8-hour working session (still a record for me), we locked in the direction. Tiles were simplified into lightweight entry points that supported faster scanning. Content shifted to detail pages and legal details to tooltips or bottom of the page — essential info on tiles, compliance where it belonged. 

We shifted the partner logo to the right, placing emphasis on the brand name and making better use of horizontal space. The result was a clearer hierarchy and a more balanced layout.

Smaller tiles surfaced more content:
Mobile tiles: 220px → 103px (53% reduction)
Desktop tiles: 474px → 140px (70% reduction)
This change surfaced 8–12 additional services immediately and made the ecosystem's breadth visible at a glance. 

How many steps should this take? In this case — just one. 
The original flow required several screens to add a service, and users were dropping off mid-enrollment. I guided the design of the consolidated experience: payment, address, plan details, and review on a single screen.

For returning users, the improvement was sharper. No re-entering payment. No redundant confirmations. One screen, done.

Simple. Engaging. On the Go.

Meeting customers where they spend time was essential in the redesign. For +play, the mobile-first approach prioritized accessibility and ease of use. As a design team, I ensured that the team reviewed Figma screens in real-time on our devices to iterate and validate our solutions.

This CX process resulted in a smoother, engaging experience for managing subscriptions, discovering entertainment, and accessing exclusive offers on the go. It was all about making the experience simple, efficient, and enjoyable — no matter where users are.

Building a system

We defined a content strategy and design patterns to support growth. The Product Service Card became the core repeatable structure — flexible enough for any partner, consistent enough to scale.

This required building a foundational pattern library — a channel DS library extending Verizon's core design system. Working with dev teams, the Design System team, and brand, we ensured alignment and feasibility.

+play was a separate offering, but it needed to feel integrated into the broader Verizon ecosystem, not like a standalone product.

We created a card system that could flex for any partner. Netflix, Apple, Xbox, Disney — each service plugs into the same structure while keeping its brand identity.

Northstar:
reimaging the platform

I guided the design strategy through 6 sprints: consolidated flows, one-click checkout, onboarding for new users, discovery that felt less transactional. The work shaped product strategy. Everything — visual language, interaction patterns, simplified flows — became the foundation for Beta launch.

The MVP (in a closed pilot) validated the concept. It proved +play had value. It gave the team something real to test and learn from.  We needed to show stakeholders how +play could stand out in a crowded market — more delightful, easier to use, worth coming back to.

At the same time, Verizon’s going through a rebrand. Both the design language and design system were evolving. Northstar allowed us to explore how +play could establish its own identity within the Verizon portfolio.

Conclusion

+play began as a promising MVP. Through the North Star work and the public Beta redesign that followed, the experience became more cohesive, easier to navigate, and aligned with Verizon’s evolving brand and design system.

Along the way, we formed strong collaboration. Long working sessions will often do that. We developed a rhythm, co-created with a common approach to move +play forward.

For me, the project was about bringing structure to a fast-moving product. Establishing a visual direction, defining patterns that could scale, and shaping an experience that successfully balanced partner, customer, and business.

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