Smartphones offer the promise of instant connectivity to a world of online possibilities, but requiring credit cards for payments can limit functionality in ways that disproportionately impact minority populations. Some smartphone owners, because of citizenship status, financial difficulty, or other socio-economic factors, aren’t able to make purchases in app stores, effectively crippling their phones. T-Mobile came up with the idea to set up kiosks as in-store consumer touchpoints to reach these underserved communities. But the kiosks that were chosen had been designed for the Chinese marketplace, and required attendants to operate properly. T-Mobile needed an interface that was easy and appealing for consumers in the U.S. to use by themselves. That’s where we came in.

Our task was to create a kiosk interface that made the experience as simple as walking into a store, plugging in, and finding and downloading content with ease. We researched human-friendly design to create a responsive interface which would be intuitive to every user. Options include buying additional phone minutes, exploring upgrade offers, and discovering new apps, games, and music to add to the user’s library. Visuals are optimized to fit within T-Mobile’s established branding, and backend options provide analytics tools to track consumer needs.

The in-store kiosks were an instant hit, allowing T-Mobile to enhance its physical retail presence and reach record levels of customer retention. In 2019, Metro by T-Mobile was rated #1 in customer satisfaction among non-contract full-service carriers by J.D. Power.