Circles X – Platform UX foundations

🔹 Overview

This project focused on establishing the UX foundations for Circles X, Circles’ proprietary telco SaaS platform used by internal operators (e.g. product managers, operations teams, customer support) to configure and manage digital telco products.

Unlike customer-facing products, the challenge here was designing for internal users (operator experience / OX) across multiple markets, while the platform was actively being used to launch and support live telco products.

This meant we were:

building a scalable platform experience while simultaneously supporting ongoing market launches — effectively “building the plane while flying it.”

🔹 The Challenge

The platform had evolved organically with strong engineering ownership but lacked:

  • a clear end-to-end view of telco journeys

  • a consistent UX structure across CMS workflows

  • a shared understanding of internal user needs

  • alignment between frontend (CX) and backend (OX)

As a result:

  • workflows were fragmented across systems

  • internal users relied on tribal knowledge

  • decision-making lacked a unified UX perspective

🔹 My Role

Design Lead (Platform UX / Circles X)

  • Led foundational UX work for internal platform (CMS / operator tools) with the design team

  • Defined service blueprints across telco journeys

  • Established early operator personas (OX)

  • Initiated internal user research with platform users

  • Drove alignment across product, design, and engineering

  • Contributed to setting up the CMS design system with engineering

🔹 Design Scope

The work focused on building a foundation layer for platform UX:

  • Mapping end-to-end telco journeys

  • Defining frontstage (customer experience) vs backstage (operator experience)

  • Designing for internal workflows across CMS tools

  • Supporting multi-market telco operations

🔹 Approach

1. Service Blueprinting (System-Level Understanding)

We mapped key telco journeys (e.g. purchasing roaming products) across:

  • Frontstage (CX)
    → What customers see and experience (app / web)

  • Backstage (OX)
    → What internal teams configure and operate via Circles X CMS

This was scaled across multiple journeys within the telco lifecycle:

  • onboarding

  • global & product configuration

  • notifications and campaigns

  • operations (e.g. SIM delivery, order handling, billing)

  • customer care

👉 This created a single source of truth linking:

  • reference customer experience

  • internal operator workflows

  • platform capabilities

It was also used as:

  • onboarding material for new PMs and designers

  • a reference to assess platform maturity vs ideal state

2. Defining Operator Personas (OX)

We identified key internal user groups:

  • Product Managers & Business Owners

  • Marketers

  • Customer Support Agents

  • Operations Teams (e.g. SIM delivery, billing)

Through internal interviews and workflow observation, we uncovered:

  • differing priorities across roles

  • heavy reliance on fragmented tools

  • lack of visibility into end-to-end processes

👉 This helped us define:

  • key use cases

  • information needs

  • operator workflow dependencies

3. Internal User Research (Enterprise UX)

We initiated structured interviews with internal users in Circles (operators) to understand:

  • how they navigate CMS workflows

  • how they track issues (e.g. failed orders, error cases, customer tickets)

  • what information they need to resolve problems

Key patterns observed:

  • experienced operators relied on familiarity, not clarity

  • new users struggled to understand system relationships

  • strong need for error visibility and operational insights

👉 These insights informed:

  • information architecture

  • workflow prioritisation

  • platform UX improvements to be included in future roadmap

4. Establishing CMS Design System

We collaborated with engineering to introduce a scalable UI foundation using Ant Design.

Why Ant Design:

  • widely adopted and well-documented

  • strong compatibility with engineering workflows

  • enabled faster development and consistency

  • reduced design–engineering friction

👉 This allowed us to:

  • standardise UI components across CMS

  • improve consistency across tools

  • accelerate feature development

5. Aligning Product, Design, and Engineering

We used the above artefacts (blueprints, personas, research) to:

  • align teams on how the platform works end-to-end

  • shift conversations from feature-level to system & journey -level thinking

  • support prioritisation across multiple market needs

🔹 Outcome

  • Established a shared system-level understanding of telco journeys across teams

  • Created reusable service blueprints used for onboarding and alignment

  • Defined foundational operator personas to guide platform design

  • Introduced a scalable design system for CMS, improving consistency and development efficiency

  • Initiated internal user research practices for platform UX

  • Enabled teams to make more informed decisions across CX–OX dependencies

👉 Most importantly:

shifted the organisation from fragmented, feature-driven thinking to a more structured, system-level approach to platform UX.

🔹 Key takeaways

  • Enterprise UX requires designing for internal workflows, not just interfaces

  • Service blueprinting is critical to align CX and OX across complex systems

  • Internal user research is essential to uncover operational pain points

  • Strong UX foundations enable scalability across markets and teams

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