In 2015, when Verizon acquired AOL, MapQuest came along with the deal. And thus, “Verizon Location Services” or VLS, was born.  

While MapQuest had a large user base of 33MM users, the user demographic trended toward an older population. Verizon wanted to grab the attention of millennials while also creating a new revenue stream by building a different kind of GPS app.

With a small, dedicated team and a crazy tight deadline of 4 months for discovery, design, development, and MVP launch, we got to work. 

Considering the tight timeline, I tasked the team to run a design sprint where we planned on using the existing infrastructure and APIs within MapQuest as our starting point.

Out of this sprint, and a handful of additional ideation sessions, came DISGO.

Once we had the idea in hand, the UX designer and researcher started mapping the experience, writing user stories, wire framing, designing the prototype, creating the test plan, testing, then analyzing and synthesizing feedback, and implementing iteration.

Concurrently, the UI designer started mood boarding to determine the direction of the visual identity. After reviewing these boards, I determined we would move ahead with “Bright and Colorful”.

I then tasked the designer to create a basic design system that would transform the low-fidelity wires into a full prototype.

The UX designer then handed off the prototype to the UI designer who then applied the design system to the low fidelity version.

Of course, all of the above took a great effort in coordination, teamwork, planning, and process recalibration. 

Since we were on such a tight timeframe, we implemented a hybrid version of Scrum mixed with Design Thinking techniques in order to keep things on track.  We condensed our design process, worked two weeks ahead of the dev team, and handed elements off to dev as early as possible.  

We created a large “War Room” where Design, Product, Dev, and occasionally the Marketing team could sit and work in close proximity and often worked together “over-the-shoulder” style to keep the work moving efficiently.  

It was an intense four months, but the team banded together, became stronger, and came out on the other side with a product we were all very proud of.  

Celebration ensued.