Prepaid Portfolio Redesign
Press 1 for Confusion – From abandoned journeys to completed activations
Company
Vodafone
Role
Junior UX/UI Designer
Website
one.hu
Industry
Telecommunication
Date
Oct 2020 - Jan 2021
The Story
Vodafone Hungary’s Prepaid portfolio is one of their three major offerings, refreshed every year. In 2020, I stepped in to lead the UX design for this portfolio for the first time—and with each iteration, we built not just interfaces, but trust.
At the time, design thinking wasn’t yet a standard part of product development. But through consistent collaboration, usability testing, and user-centric iteration, we shifted how the prepaid product was designed—and how stakeholders saw the role of design itself.
The key challenge? While prepaid SIMs were successfully sold online, most activations still happened through the call center. Customers felt confused, overwhelmed, and hesitant. Our mission was clear: guide them through digital activation with confidence and reduce dependency on human support.
The Challenge
At first, we assumed this was simply a usability problem—something broken in the flow.
But when we tested the full journey, from browsing to SIM activation, the real blocker wasn’t the UI.
It was communication.
• The volume of information felt overwhelming.
• Activation seemed like a complex, technical task.
• Users thought they had already chosen a tariff when buying the SIM—so being asked again during activation felt like an error, not a step.
Even customers who wanted to activate digitally often abandoned the journey. Not because the product didn’t work, but because the mental model did.
Impact
The redesign didn’t just improve the interface—it reshaped the journey.
• Higher digital activation rates → More customers completed activation online, reducing reliance on the call center.
• Shorter support paths → With clearer flows and communication, fewer customers needed to call for help.
• Stronger stakeholder alignment → Workshops and testing created shared ownership of the design process, building long-term trust in UX.
• A repeatable framework → The new prepaid structure—base tariff + modular add-ons—became the foundation for future portfolio iterations.
My Role
I led the UX and UI design, collaborating closely with a service designer and UX writer.
I created user flows, high-fidelity UI, and custom illustrations to clarify each step of the journey. More importantly, I helped bring design thinking into the process—turning design into the foundation of the product, not just the surface.
This was also the first time the design team actively shaped portfolio content itself, making the prepaid experience more unified and user-centered from the inside out.
Ideation
We couldn’t remove every friction point. Some of the most confusing steps—like the repeated tariff selection—were locked in due to technical constraints.
So we worked around them.
We organized a three-day remote workshop with stakeholders, mapped current and ideal user journeys, and prototyped new flows to test.
Our first attempt focused on explanation: a guided walkthrough that set clearer expectations. But tests showed users still lacked confidence.
The real shift came when we stopped explaining and started reframing.
Iteration: Make It Believe
We redesigned the portfolio presentation with a structure that matched how users actually thought about prepaid:
• Base tariff card → Simple, essential info up front
• Add-on section → Optional extras, clearly separated as upgrades
This reduced perceived complexity, improved scannability, and aligned the product’s mental model with the user’s.
Result
We launched a portfolio with:
• One clear base tariff
• Modular add-ons
• A lifecycle-based experience that delivered the right info at the right time
Users gained confidence, digital activations increased, and reliance on support shrank—because the product itself had become clearer.
Why It Mattered
This redesign wasn’t about making the prepaid portfolio prettier.
It was about restoring trust in the process—and reducing dependency on call center support by building clarity and confidence.
We simplified complexity without removing flexibility.
We created a digital journey that felt more human.
And for something as technical as prepaid SIM activation, that shift made all the difference.