Product Catalog (SaaS)
Year:
2022 - 2025
Duration:
3+ years
Role:
Product Designer
Project Overview
Objective
To design a centralized platform that helps telecommunication companies create and manage their product offerings in one place.
Problem
Telecom companies often rely on scattered systems and spreadsheets to manage products, which leads to inconsistencies and slow workflows.
Solution
A SaaS product catalog that serves as a single source of truth for managing plans, devices, and services.
Team
I worked on this project with multiple product designers, UX researchers, product managers and engineers at Wavelo (a Tucows' company).
Process
Discovery Research
My first step in this project was to review the interviews previously conducted by a UX researcher with seven stakeholders from both mobile and internet service providers. I took detailed notes, examined the research findings, and identified the key pain points. These insights guided design decisions throughout the project and ensured we focused on the areas that mattered most to users.
Key Takeaways from Stakeholders
Creating products and offers is often an iterative process
The telecom market changes rapidly, and product requirements shift frequently. The Product Catalog should allow users to make edits and updates easily and efficiently.Dealing with many systems and databases can be frustrating
Participants had to coordinate with multiple teams and search through various systems to find the information they needed, especially when it was changing rapidly.Manually updating things across multiple platforms is inconvenient
Poorly integrated systems forced users to make the same updates in multiple places, creating extra work and slowing down processes.Processes vary a lot depending on the company
Each participant had different methods for tracking products and creating offers, highlighting the need for a flexible and adaptable solution.
Design and Iteration
I worked closely with multiple product managers and product designers to define which features the catalog should include. Once requirements were gathered from product managers, I created wireframes with support from a lead designer. Key flows I worked on included:
Creating, viewing, and editing a template
Creating, viewing, and editing a product
Creating, viewing, and editing an offering
These flows went through many iterations over the years, with continuous feedback from the team. Collaboration with developers was a key part of the process, allowing us to explore solutions together and refine the designs to meet both user and technical needs.
Throughout the iteration process, we stayed focused on the user pain points we had identified. Our goal was to make the catalog highly customizable and easy to update. We also collaborated with other teams to ensure the catalog could integrate seamlessly with Wavelo's online checkout process and admin order management services. These integrations allow users to update their products once in the catalog, with changes automatically reflected across their other systems.
Testing and Feedback
After several design iterations, engineers developed the MVP version of the product catalog. Product managers on other teams tested it with a client who already had a robust catalog backend but lacked a frontend, uncovering limitations and issues with the initial implementation. To gather additional insights, I created an interactive Figma prototype for the product managers to demo to the client.
The feedback was generally positive, but the catalog was not yet feature-rich enough, and concerns about backend integrations emerged. The MVP relied on an existing backend that wasn’t performing optimally, and the client wanted to continue using the backend that they were already using to avoid a complex migration.
To address this, we pivoted the design to limit fully custom product features and attributes. Instead, users could toggle preconfigured features that aligned with the improved backend that Wavelo had already build for a client. This approach ensured the catalog remained consistent and functional while still providing flexibility where possible.
Challenges
Backend integration: Aligning the front-end catalog design with the new backend built for a client was complex. Misaligned features and provisioning data required careful adjustments to ensure the product worked reliably.
Flexibility for clients: Each client wanted to set up the catalog differently, which meant the platform had to balance configurability with consistency. Designing a solution that was flexible but still manageable was a key challenge.
Outcome
The Product Catalog is still in development, but significant progress has been made in shaping its design and functionality. Using Replit, I prototyped design changes with AI, which allowed both the design and product teams to visualize how the catalog could work before full development.
Early feedback on these prototypes was positive, helping validate flows and UI decisions. Wavelo's AI team contributed to building additional features as well. While the final product is not yet live, the project has generated interest from potential clients.
Next Steps
Future work will focus on completing the Product Catalog development and preparing it for client adoption. Improving the billing and pricing features remains a priority, as these areas can be complex due to variable plans, discounts, and promotions. Once these capabilities are finalized, the catalog can be sold to clients, helping telecom providers manage their products more efficiently. We are also considering adding an "AI agent" feature to help users build products faster.
Conclusion
Working on designing Wavelo's Product Catalog has been a long and challenging project, but it has also been very rewarding. I have gotten to learn a lot of new things about working with frontend and backend developers to create the best solutions for users. If I were to start over and do this project again, I would want to work more with the development teams throughout the entire process and do more user testing with potential clients early on.
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