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Uniting digital presences by reimagining architectures

Creating a Universal Design System to deliver seamless omnichannel experiences

TELUS Digital is the web arm of Canadian telecoms giant TELUS. The group offers a variety of microservices, each with their own look, feel and function that customers interact with every day, both in person and online.

Fragmented
experiences

TELUS was expanding its omnichannel experience and moving into new industries. However, monolithic legacy architectures, siloed teams and isolated technologies meant TELUS’ brands were disconnected and fragmented, resulting in poor customer experience, and diminishing their offer.

To create a seamless user experience, they needed to completely reimagine the structural foundation of not just their technologies, but their processes too, in a way that would unify designers, developers and product. TELUS engaged Nearform for their technical expertise to help them consolidate and strengthen the drifting aspects of their digital presence.

By uniting all customer touch points through a Universal Design System, we created a seamless experience regardless of channel.

A bottom-up solution

Discovery sessions allowed Nearform to pinpoint the solution – a Universal Design System that had both cross-channel and cross-platform functionality. The UDS could be architected from the bottom up, promoting open and inner source culture.

The system’s constellation structure – a core design system connected to individual design systems for each microservice/brand – meant independent groups could share tools, languages and patterns, then apply them to their own context. Front and back end systems were decoupled by inserting a robust technical layer between them, allowing teams to tackle projects at the appropriate pace. 

An image of a bespectacled woman holding a tablet.
The UDS combined a number of elements to create a clear framework for the team to build and shape solutions at pace.

Our impact

Time for what matters

By creating a one multi-platform system, developers could focus on UX and design, instead of tedious tasks that were now automated. This improved DX by allowing developers to be more experimental and creative.

Streamlined processes. Epic results.

Teams who adopted new platforms and ways of working found that their rate of productivity and pace of development greatly increased, meaning that the time to market 
of new apps was cut by 30-40%.

Building capabilities

TELUS and Nearform developers co-created various aspects of the new architecture, transferring knowledge across both teams, and planting the seed of new workflows and processes within TELUS.

Built to scale

The UDS also employed reusability at scale across the TELUS group, facilitating expansion into new sectors.

“Generally the time to market for any new app is about 30-40% less than it was, which is huge!”
Steve Tannock Director of Platform, Technology & Tools at Telus Digital
An image of a smartphone with a rabbit on the screen.
Creating one multi-platform system improved CX across all channels, strengthening TELUS’s digital presence and brand reputation.

Our capabilities

DESIGN

UX design

Design systems

Design components

Omni-channel

ENGINEERING

Modern layered architecture

Insight, imagination and expertly engineered solutions to accelerate and sustain progress.

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