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Verizon team.
From left to right: Lindsay Real, Yixiu Wu, Richard Dalton, Alexa Curtis, Andrew Pendleton, Brian Kelly

| Verizon Voices

Get to know Verizon’s Experience Design team.

By: Verizon Careers

From left to right: Lindsay Real, Yixiu Wu, Richard Dalton, Alexa Curtis, Andrew Pendleton, Brian Kelly

From building experiences to building careers, meet the team that’s on a mission to shape the future of connected customer experiences — and learn what it takes to join them.

Experience Design brings together everything, from the look and feel of a digital or physical experience to the structure and features of the systems that designers build. At Verizon, this organization includes different teams that work together to seamlessly provide customers and employees with an innovative experience.

Experience Design is still an emerging discipline that could be abstract to some but at its core is all about making things that work for people and involves visual design, information architecture, interface design and engineering, product design, industrial design, service design, content design, and more.

At Verizon, the Experience Design team includes some of the industry's trailblazers, practitioners who have led through the last two decades of digital transformation and are now bringing that expertise to the company.

Led by Richard Dalton, VP of Experience Design, the team is evolving experiences through the lens of earning customer love and making their interactions with Verizon simple and differentiated. This team puts the customer first, including everything from digital experiences (e.g., websites and smartphone apps) to physical ones like routers, the award-winning Gizmo Watch for kids, and in-store experiences.

 

“Within Experience Design, we make a lot of decisions about the customer and employee experience that end up having a great impact. Whether you’re just starting out or continuing in your career journey, it’s a great place to learn while doing impactful work at a massive scale. We are a big enough team that we’ve got a thriving culture, so it’s just a great place to work.”

Richard Dalton, VP of Experience Design

With so many Verizon career opportunities currently available in Experience Design, here’s a closer look at the exciting work this team does.

Laying the foundation for our designers.

Verizon India team.
Guru Ravi, Head of Design for Verizon India, pictured to the right of US-based design partners, Alexa Curtis and Andrew Pendleton following lunch with teammates in Bengaluru, India.

For our team of designers to create great experiences at scale, there are structures and systems to ensure all assets accurately reflect our brand.

Andrew Pendleton, Senior Director of Experience Design, leads the team that manages our Verizon Design System, which lays the foundation for the visual look and feel of our digital experiences. From spacing and sizing to typography and buttons, this team is a crucial component of the Experience Design team, ensuring that every asset is consistent and on-brand. One of the team’s latest projects was the creation of a fully accessible, on-brand video component — learn more about the newest addition to the Verizon Design System here

On this team, no two days are the same. You could find yourself creating multiple variations of an asset, such as a button, broken down into detailed specs. Or, you could be heads-down in refining components to leverage refreshed brand elements. Maintaining a systems mindset and strong attention to detail are crucial.

“We are the expression of the Verizon brand within the digital space. Just having a hand in the manifestation of the Verizon brand within the digital space is pretty exciting in and of itself.”

Andrew Pendleton, Senior Director of Experience Design

Driving our digital channels.

Verizon NYC team.
Alexa Curtis (far right) photographed with some of her teammates in the downtown New York City office.

The Digital Channels team brings Verizon’s digital experiences to life, from our website and apps to the point-of-sale applications used by Retail employees and Customer Support reps. This team is tasked with taking components of the Verizon Design System and assembling them into increasingly useful products and tools, including modules, templates, and ecosystems.

Alexa Curtis, Associate Vice President of Experience Design, leads the Digital Channels team. This team simplifies and improves customer interactions, whether it's helping customers switch to Verizon, learning about or buying new products, tracking orders, account management, or troubleshooting an issue.

Supporting tens of millions of customers every week, this team relies on system thinking and modular design to make each interaction as personalized, simple, and useful as possible. The team is looking for designers with a systems mindset who thrive working on multi-variant, logic-driven transactions to join the team.

Beyond systems, designers on the Digital Channels team partner heavily with product managers, capability managers, and engineers to build experiences. Strong communication and collaboration skills are critical for designers to thrive here. And, the ability to help visualize concepts to ensure teams are moving forward with shared understanding and clear requirements is one of the design super powers this team is seeking for those interested in this career path.

“Designers are making a big impact at Verizon. Our team has great momentum and support as part of the CX community. We’re hiring for roles across multiple levels, so there’s a good range of opportunities for designers to take that next step in their careers.”

Alexa Curtis, Associate Vice President of Experience Design

Bringing Verizon Consumer products to life.

Verizon consumer product team.
Verizon Consumer Products Design team outing.

Brian Kelly, Associate Vice President of Experience Design, leads the Verizon Consumer Products Design team. This team leads the charge behind the products that go beyond the network. Think about the products and services that customers may choose to add to their mobile or home experience — these are the areas that Brian’s team focuses on.

In addition to digital products —such as Verizon Cloud, an app that allows users to back up files and services to the cloud — this team also has an impressive lineup of physical products in their portfolio, including award-winning Verizon hardware like routers, and remote controls.

For Brian, working with his team taking projects from ideation to launch is especially exhilarating. “It’s pretty exciting to go from an initial idea to work through the iterations to launch,” he shared. “The most exciting part about digital is you may not get everything right the first time — you'll get some things wrong and then you have the chance to fix those things, which is great.”

There are a variety of exciting projects and opportunities on the horizon for this team, including Verizon Home Internet, fixed wireless access technology, and the Internet of Things (IoT). Both creativity and an understanding of the business are crucial. Collaboration is also key when it comes to partnering with teammates, developers, and business partners to bring projects to life.

“The scale and the reach of what we do is exciting, as well as the opportunity within home connectivity. The mix of physical spaces and digital experiences within those spaces also keeps our work very exciting and interesting.”

Brian Kelly, Associate Vice President of Experience Design

Creating the ultimate in-store experience.

Verizon team.
Yixiu Wu (far right) and the V Team, including EVP & Group CEO-Verizon Consumer Sowmyanarayan Sampath (third person from the left), at the myPlan launch at the Herald Square location in New York City.

When you walk into a Verizon Retail store and look around, you’ll see a variety of experiences, from in-store merchandising to innovative tech designed to enhance the shopping experience. Within Experience Design, there’s a team dedicated to developing these experiences for our customers and employees.

Yixiu Wu, Associate Director of Experience Design, leads the team that’s responsible for Retail Experience Design, which includes all that goes into the customer and employee experience in our Retail locations. This includes the app, the in-store digital screens, and the tools our sales associates use when interacting with customers.

myPlan has been a successful launch for Verizon. Yixiu’s team was instrumental in the design of interactive screens that visually helped customers understand all the key advantages of myPlan. With these in-store screens, customers can customize their ideal phone plan — choosing from popular plans or building their own, guided by our trusted Retail representatives. Getting to test the screens and gather feedback has allowed Yixiu’s team to make continuous improvements and align the experience to the needs of both customers and employees.

“The representatives in our retail stores do a lot, so the unique part about working in Retail Experience Design is that you get to impact the sales associates’ experience. When we create useful digital products, tools, and experiences, we’re helping our reps do their jobs more seamlessly. And when we help them, we help our customers. I think most of my day is spent advocating for what our reps and customers do in stores and making things easier for them.”

Yixiu Wu, Associate Director of Experience Design

We’re hiring!

Verizon’s Experience Design team is on a mission to shape the future of connected customer experiences. This team puts customers at the center of everything they do. So, if this sounds like you, consider joining us!

The team is currently hiring for a variety of roles, including:

  • Experience Designer
  • Senior Experience Designer
  • Lead Experience Designer
  • Principal Experience Designer
  • Associate Director, Experience Design
  • Director, Experience Design

Sound like a good fit? Apply to open roles now.

Biography

Verizon Careers blog offers career insights and advice. Be part of the network of people who move the world forward.


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