GCI is Alaska’s largest mobile and internet service provider. They specialize in offering effective telecom solutions to all 600,000+ square miles of “The Last Frontier”. This is no easy task considering many of their subscribers live in remote areas of the Yukon. After some competitive analysis in 2019, GCI was poised to rethink their digital strategy, starting with e-commerce on gci.com and the unveiling of a new streaming service called YukonTV for their customers.
While working as a freelance product designer for Horizontal Digital, I helped their team strategize and ultimately design new interfaces for gci.com. My two-year involvement focused on 3 key areas, the first being e-commerce. We rethought the purchasing path for users, making it more efficient and intuitive. Purchasing a device online and pairing it with a mobile plan can be a complicated process, especially for rural residents of Alaska who may be more used to an in-store buying experience. Ultimately, our designs prioritized ease-off-use while effectively articulating the hundreds of possible combinations a user could choose from. We introduced new sorting and filtering mechanisms and aimed to create a more comfortable interface for browsing device types. Product list and display pages now appear more visual, replicating an in-store shopping experience for the digital space. Lastly, we made the path to purchase more of a guided experience. We leveraged progress trackers and other UI to help with transparency for the user as they click toward purchase.
Secondly, I helped in the concepting and art direction of a number of seasonal and/or promotional campaigns. Some of the larger campaigns included the introduction of Alaska’s first 5G network and the unveiling of GCI’s YukonTV streaming platform. The YukonTV app can be downloaded on any streaming device, and gives GCI subscribers access to hundreds of channels. The app was created in an effort to migrate existing cable subscribers to a more modern streaming-based plan. Our art direction was inspired by Alaska’s many unique landscapes and wilderness areas. We used shapes like mountains and streams to frame popular Alaskan streaming content like “Life Below Zero” and ”Gold Rush”.
Lastly, I worked alongside Horizontal Digital to craft and design the art direction for a product bundling strategy for GCI. Like many of their competitors, GCI is motivated to have their customers bundle multiple offerings under one plan. AT&T is the second-largest mobile provider in Alaska, and they were first to market with their All-In-One plans. GCI had the benefit to take that model, but frame it more toward their Alaskan audience—prioritizing access to quality service, even in the far reaches of the state. GCI+ was launched in 2020, giving customers the ability to bundle mobile, internet, data and TV into one consolidated monthly bill.
