Content design & UX writing for AT&T
Working for BIO Agency, a now-defunct division of UK-based BORN Group, I was the lead content designer and UX writer for the Wireless line of business at AT&T. I worked on static web page copy and over a dozen customer acquisition and retention projects and during my tenure there.
One particularly important and successful project was a bring your own device (BYOD) campaign aimed at students and their parents duing the back-to-school retail season. The campaign was designed to pull would-be customers away from other cell service carriers by offering deals on devices, wireless plans, and the ability to keep the same phone number—lacking this capability had severly limited success with similar campaigns in the past.
The process was semi-complicated, and optimizing the user experience was paramount.
Challenges
- Getting product owners—for different device brands, rate plans. SIM options—to support with an extremely tight deadline.
- Communicating incentives accurately and transparently—as one member of the legal team explained: “AT&T is one of the most sued organizations in the United States.”
- Making sure all content was mobile-friendly, fully accessible, and WCAG compliant.
- Maintaining a consistent, empathetic brand voice throughout the process.
It was important that this BYOD content be so logical and easy to understand that would-be customers could easily complete the process online and not rely on phone support.
Approach
With agile teams swapping members from one project to the next, I started by familiarizing myself with the working styles of my colleages: a project manager, several product owners, a strategist, and two UI/UX designers. Then I:
Met with product owners to hear and note the details of their offers and incentives, and worked with the UI/UX designers to create those content elements.
Worked with the lead designer to establish a "content playground" in Figma, which was a duplicate of the formal journey we were creating, so that I could manipulate and then incorporate before weekly stakeholder presentations.
Participated in daily Figma working sessions with the UI/UX designers to speed the process and gather feedback
Held peer review sessions with the other content designers/UX writers from other business lines to bounce ideas and copy off them for input
Presented progress and defended content choices during weekly stakeholder review meetings
Ensured all content was legally sound, met accessibility standards, and was fully WCAG compliant.
I was also able to leverage AI to brainstorm variations, proof for consistency, and speed the process.
Impact
The back-to-school BYOD campaign launched on time with full participaton from all invited product owners.
"Content playgrounds" in Figma were adopted by BORN as a new approach for UX writers actively collaborating with designers.
Would-be customers were offered a slew of incentives, including reduced costs on devices, limited-time rate plan deals, and new SIM options, all within a content design that was mobile-friendly, compelling, and easy to process.
VIP deals were showcased for active military, veterans, active and retired first responders, nurses, physicians, public safety officials, teachers, and customers over 55 years old.
Content that explained the switching process—check compatibility, unlock device, choose a plan, choose a free SIM or eSIM, activation—made this campaign dramatically more successful than ones launched in previous years.
Numbered steps and checklists became the content standard going forward when customers were expected to negotiate process-heavy requests online.
The BYOD campaign attracted ~550,000 new customers—in three short weeks—that accomplished the goal without having to call for phone support.
Final thoughts
This was another fully remote collaboration—product owners in Dallas, a lead UI/UX designer in Halifax, and me in Peterborough—that reinforced a simple truth: time is better spent collaborating than commuting. I was consistently impressed by the ambition and resolve of the AT&T team, and I had the rare opportunity to work closely with—and learn from—one of the most talented designers I’ve met in my career.
Working at BORN, exclusively on AT&T projects, became a year-long immersion in Figma and cross-disciplinary collaboration. It’s a workflow I still use daily, and one that directly influenced how I later worked at BMO and Sun Life—particularly the idea of treating content as a shared playground, not a last-mile deliverable.
As with most great roles, the highlight was the people. While BIO Agency no longer exists and BORN’s structure has evolved, I’d welcome any opportunity to work again with the designers and writers I met there.
"I had the pleasure of working with Colin at Tech Mahindra / BIO (BORN) Agency on AT&T's customer-facing digital experience. Colin is one of those rare content strategists who truly understands the product side of the equation. He doesn't just write well, he thinks strategically about how content drives user behavior, supports feature adoption, and shapes the overall customer experience. On our AT&T engagement, Colin was an integral part of a fast-moving, cross-functional team working across product owners, designers, and developers. He brought clarity to complex communication challenges, whether it was refining customer-facing messaging, aligning content strategy with feature rollouts, or collaborating directly in Figma to ensure the content and design worked together seamlessly. He didn't sit in a silo and hand off copy. He was in the work with us, iterating, problem-solving, and making the end product better because of it. What stands out most is Colin's ability to balance creative thinking with the discipline of working on an agile team. He understood priorities, adapted quickly, and consistently delivered work that elevated the experience for real customers. He's technically capable, strategically sharp, and genuinely collaborative. Any team looking for a content strategist who can operate at the intersection of product, design, and communication would be lucky to have him."
Rick Smith – Director of Product Design @ BORN Group
Note: Job titles at BIO Agency/BORN Group varied by team, so colleagues sometimes referred to me as a content designer, content strategist, or UX writer—each describing the same core role. – CP