verizon challenge
For Northwestern McCormick School's Segal design course (Research, Design, Build), we partnered with Verizon for an entire quarter to address the following challenge:
Verizon's Family products currently focus on safety and connectivity.
How can Verizon develop an innovative solution that leverages emerging technologies to transition these offerings from reactive monitoring solutions into products that deliver proactive digital well-being?
Role
Business Innovation Designer
Duration
3 months
Tools
Figma, Lovable, Google Slides, Google Form
quick summary
Verizon’s family products are largely positioned for reactive control (monitoring, limits, restrictions). In RDB, our team explored how Verizon could shift from reactive monitoring to proactive digital wellbeing by redesigning one of the most emotionally loaded moments in a family’s digital journey: a child’s first phone setup.
Our concept is a guided onboarding experience that helps parents and children align expectations throughout multiple, intentional touchpoints before settings get locked.
why this problem matters
A first phone is a complex relationship transition that evolves as the child matures. Families are suddenly negotiating independence, identity, trust, and boundaries in a space where kids can often move faster than adults.
Most existing parental control flows treat this as a configuration task. That approach unintentionally turns trust into a set of unilateral rules, and it often starts the relationship off on the wrong foot.
approach
We ran a discovery-to-design loop with two explicit research objectives:
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Understand the teen’s digital world
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Identify moments of tension (where misalignment turns into conflict
This let us design for the relationship and not just the product surface.
what we learned
1. The ecology of a teen's digital world.
A child’s digital life doesn’t begin when they receive their first phone. It starts earlier and expands across three environments—Home, School, and the wider social world. Mapping this ecology helped us understand why families experience conflict so predictably, and why the “first phone” moment is a high-leverage opportunity for proactive digital wellbeing.
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Home: early habits form within “safe boundaries
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Many kids start on a shared tablet as young as five, often restricted and shared, which creates early moments of tension.
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Parents also use passive screen time as a practical tool to manage boredom, especially during travel.
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Early interactions with digital technology happen before a first phone, but within the safety and confines of home.
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💡 Design implication: families already have routines, friction, and expectations. A “first phone” solution cannot assume a blank slate.
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School: the gateway to the first phone, and a shift inside the home
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School is often the trigger for a child’s first phone and the social shift within the home.
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Parents introduce a phone out of practical necessity tied to school logistics such as safety, communication, and location.
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💡 Design implication: the first phone is justified as logistics, but it quietly signals a new level of independence.
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World: the social tipping point that changes the meaning of the device
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The first apps a child typically uses on a personal phone are often social, including TikTok, Snapchat, and iMessage.
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By middle school, not having a phone can lead to social isolation as peers already have one.
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The phone becomes a primary tool for self-expression and agency.
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As children prioritize the social role of the device over parental security concerns, conflict emerges from misaligned understandings and values.
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💡 Design implication: “screen time” arguments are often proxy fights about identity, belonging, and autonomy.
This led us to our hero insight:
2. From milestones to moments
Through our interviews, we also traced the parent-child digital relationship through a sequence of high-tension moments: getting the first phone, defining boundaries, pushing boundaries, and shared expectations.
💡 Design implication: Verizon does not need to solve everything at once. It can win by designing the right moments, especially the earliest one.
solution
Introducing Halo. Let's do this together.
The value proposition: For parents of children about to get their first phone, Halo encourages healthy dialogue and reflective moments to define shared expectations, guidelines, and definitions, supported by an adaptable continuous platform with engaging touchpoints.
Halo is designed as a journey with trust-building touchpoints/moments across the four important milestones we discovered.
I was responsible for prototyping solutions for the boot-up experience specifically. For a full deep dive of our solution, check out our final presentation.
To tackle this challenge, I reviewed the current state of the booting experience and noticed the following:
With this in mind, I envisioned a future state as described below:
Before a parent unilaterally takes over the controls setup, Halo makes the boot-up a shared moment. The child pairs their new phone to the parent’s phone via Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, turning configuration into a guided, side-by-side experience. The flow keeps kids engaged with light gamification while giving parents clear context and coaching so expectations are built through conversation first, and controls follow as a mutual understanding, not a surprise restriction.
Here's the full, clickable demo of the boot-up experience, made with Figma Make.
reflection
The Verizon Halo project gave me a realistic view into what a design innovation role feels like in practice. Working in a pod-style team with classmates from a wide range of backgrounds pushed me to align quickly, communicate clearly, and make decisions with imperfect information.
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Team player & lead: Because of my user research background, I was able to lead parts of planning, interviewing, and synthesis early on. But my main growth was learning how to be both a team player and a leader at the same time: setting direction through clear research questions and decision frameworks, then stepping back to make sure the team co-owned the insights, the narrative, and the design choices. The result was stronger work output that resulted in a near perfect score.
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In-Depth Interviews: Learning to synthesize the experiences of 40+ youths from 11-20 years old was challenging in the best way possible. I learned how to not only remove all the clutter and noise but also to develop a compelling framework of insights that the entire team could rally around.
analog sticky notes
feedback
"Your insight story was exemplary — interesting, visually compelling, and brought to life through strong quotes and the playful use of oranges, which added both joy and weight to the narrative. The way you illustrated the evolution of the child’s experience was particularly brilliant and helped create a clear, engaging foundation for the rest of the work... We also loved the addition of the Vero boot-up, which added depth and clarity to the experience." —Executive Director of the Segal Design Institute