marc cannon

Mobile Data Plan for Android

UX Lead • UX Design • Growth design • Prototyping

Manage your phone plan from settings

Background

Many mobile phone plan subscribers in developed markets like the US or Europe have relatively simple, straightforward, and usually “unlimited” postpaid plans paid via credit card and purchased via brick and mortar stores. This isn’t the case in developing markets like Thailand, Indonesia, India, Brazil where a patchwork of stalls, convenience stores, and sometimes salespeople with backpacks of SIM cards may offer a deal or a scam and are only safely accessible to many during the day.

Problem

Mobile data users in those developing markets go without data for 1-3 days a month due to friction and cost of accessing physical stores with payment where plan offerings are inconsistent. Mobile network operators (MNOs) have a hard time retaining customers due to the friction in the plan lifecycle. Google (and Android) users do not use Google services as a result when disconnected.

A trustworthy mobile recharge shop will facilitate adding money to your account or sell you non-expired SIM… usually

Once money is in your MNO account you can check your balances via dialing a special number to bring up a USSD menu to check balances or activate plans

Many MNOs send SMS messages to confirm transactions and are often poorly formatted and filled with unwanted marketing messaging.

⚠️

Challenges in the ecosystem

🙍 Mobile Users
  • Disconnected often
  • Confusing and opaque plan details
  • Physical transactions needed to top up prepaid plans
  • Low tech literacy creates additional confusion
📶 Mobile network operators
  • Subscribers churn often for cheaper data
  • Difficult to market to prepaid customers
  • Subscribers find little value to downloading carrier app
 Google (and Android)
  • Apps make incorrect data cost assumptions
  • Disconnection means lost ad revenue
  • Need partnerships with carriers

Solution

Leverage Google’s integration with the Android OS to help its users avoid disconnection. We created a simple and reliable way to view and manage your mobile data plan built with privacy in mind by partnering with MNOs. They would share data with Google in an anonymized way to protect user privacy and curtail potential abuse by MNOs. I facilited a workshop to identify based on the needs of our users what we would hope the UX would prioritize as product principles

Mobile users subscribed to MNOs who partnered with Google would receive notifications about their plan and engaging with it would allow them to view more details, balances, and get more data.

Product principles

Universal
Prioritize common user needs and create fallback support to allow for flexibility and speed to market.

Reliable
The user should be able to access timely & accurate plan info regardless of their connectivity state.

Transparent
Present the user's plan, status, and available plans that is clear without hidden gotchas or conditions.

Actionable
The user should always have a clear path to take action to any given state.

Scaling impact

After calls with our parnters at random hours answering questions about how the UX would appear, it was clear that something scalable was needed to explain how the API affected the UX.

I designed, wrote and implemented guidelines alongside our public documentation to help onboard new MNOs and provide a resource for them to implement with our principles of reliability and transparency.

Notifications that users trust

Plan lifecycle notifications were the backbone of how our users accessed our UX. However, we identified this didn't cover all users journeys.

<.03%

Users opted-out

7x

Better CTR vs MNO's apps

Improving discovery

Before users took on data intensive tasks, like video calls or downloading apps, they wanted to check their data balance easily. Given how deep in Android settings our UX was, we knew we needed alternative solutions.

While we were making the case for value to Google and users with monthly active user metrics, I created some options within the Android and Google ecosystem we could leverage when the time was right or begin experimentation with high level approval.

Clockwise from top left:

  1. User added shortcut
  2. Daily silent notfication
  3. Integrate into the Android's Mobile Network settings
  4. Enable personal results within Google Search

The good times never last 🪦

The team and our mobile carrier partners were happy with the direction but unfortunately, MDP was put into maintenance mode and the team was reassigned. Despite this, the vision of a simpler easier way to manage your mobile connection lives on in our hearts. ❤️

Team

UXR: Ted McCarthy, Evelyn Tio
Product: Elva Fan, Evan Jacobs
TL: Andreas Terzis

Let's work together

For questions, business inquries, or connect write to me at hello@marccannon.com

Copyright 2025 Marc Cannon. All rights reserved for me, myself, and I.