Designing products from scratch as part of BT's first in-house design team
BT had never had an in-house design team. When I joined, we were building the function from the ground up, which meant proving the value of design to stakeholders while simultaneously shipping products across broadband, landline and the digital brand.
I was a Senior Product Designer working across multiple products. I led the product design for BT Ultrafast and BT Call Protect (both 0-1 products), contributed to the BT Vision brand exploration, and helped define the Online Master Guidelines, BT's first digital design system.
Being the first design team meant we had to earn trust quickly. I focused on running structured discoveries, presenting back to PMs and Directors with clear rationale, and delivering at a quality level that demonstrated what an embedded design team could do. User research was central to every project.
The products
BT Ultrafast
BT Ultrafast was a new broadband proposition that needed a complete pre-sales journey designed from scratch. I ran a six-week discovery covering product design audits, competitor analysis and user research, then worked with two product designers to translate findings into concepts through workshops and ideation sessions. We produced high-level journey maps and wireframes, presented them to Product Managers and Directors, and moved into usability testing with a research partner in Old Street. The proposition was signed off and moved into sprint-based refinement.
Visit BT Broadband →
BT Call Protect
BT Call Protect was a 0-1 product that let BT customers manage and block nuisance calls to their landline. I designed the UI for a system that used an API to link incoming call numbers to a backend database, giving users control over who could reach them. The product hit 140,000 sign-ups against a target of 90,000.
Visit BT Call Protect →
BT Vision Project
The BT brand was evolving and I was tasked with producing conceptual designs for how BT's digital landscape could look under the new identity. The work included full-width video backgrounds, 3D scope integration and interactive elements. I presented the concepts to PMs and Directors and set the visual direction for the wider design team. The Vision project directly informed the visual direction of the BT Online Master Guidelines.
BT Online Master Guidelines
I helped define BT's first digital design system, the Online Master Guidelines. This covered all components, patterns and design fibres used across BT's digital products. I worked with the visual design team on the component inventory, planned research sessions with UX to validate best-in-class patterns, and aligned the system with the brand team and their external agency.
What I learned
Being part of BT's first in-house design team taught me the importance of building credibility through delivery. We had to demonstrate value before we could advocate for process. It also showed me how structured research and clear stakeholder communication could accelerate decision-making, even in a large organisation that wasn't used to having designers in the room. Many of the learnings I took from setting up a team from scratch were later applied to how I built the design team at British Airways.
