SyncUP TRACKER

⭐️ 4.8 App Store Rating | 200K+ Users | iOS - Android 

Company:  T-Mobile
Duration:  Approximately 2.5 years
Team:  TRACKER Design Team
My Role:  Principal Product Designer

Case Study: Keeping Track of What Matters

Leading product design from concept to launch for an IoT-connected tracking app focused on real-life peace of mind.

Overview

Design Leadership in Action: Setting the Vision for SyncUP Tracker

As the Principal Product Designer for SyncUP TRACKER, I led a team of four incredibly talented designers through the full product design lifecycle. While our UX team was small, we operated with clarity, agility, and a shared commitment to delivering a product that users could trust.

From the beginning, I focused on setting a strong design foundation—collaborating closely with product managers in the early days when ideas lived only in rough sketches and hastily mocked-up screens. I took on the most complex and ambiguous design challenges, while also mentoring junior designers to grow their craft and confidence.

What started as a conceptual vision quickly evolved into a polished, reliable IoT-connected experience—ultimately becoming a trusted product that helped people track what matters most.

Problem Solving

Helping people stay connected to what matters, using IoT

T-Mobile leadership identified a critical gap: customers needed a way to track important personal items, but no product or app existed to meet that need. The vision was clear—create an IoT-powered solution leveraging T-Mobile’s network—but the path forward was wide open.

Working closely with the first assigned product manager, I helped lead the earliest concept explorations to answer the executive team’s request. We rapidly developed and presented a series of UX-driven prototypes that visualized what a seamless, user-centered tracking experience could look like.

Our concept was quickly greenlit as the right direction to pursue, and the TRACKER Design Team was formed—with myself appointed as the Principal Product Designer to lead the effort from ideation to launch.

⬆️  Above - Early prototype screens built rapidly for executive review—designed in collaboration with PMs as part of T-Mobile’s internal new product innovation sprint.

Leading the UX Vision

My core role: owning key user journeys, mentoring the team, and driving product success.

As the Principal Product Designer, I led the SyncUP TRACKER design team, guiding four other designers and mentoring junior team members across the project lifecycle. In addition to leading team meetings and design direction, I personally owned several of the app’s most critical and complex flows, including:

• Device onboarding UX, from pairing to setup completion
• App tour design, including microcopy and Lottie-based animations
• Error state flows and recovery logic
• Device profile interface, showing item details and status
• Firmware update experience, with seamless user communication
• User research planning and execution to validate early concepts
• Visual design leadership, establishing UI consistency and product cohesion

This role required balancing individual contribution with design leadership, while driving collaboration across product, engineering, and executive stakeholders.

The Work in Action

From Figma to final product 

Where strategy met execution—every screen, flow, and decision I led as Principal Product Designer.

Uncharted Paths

Device Onboarding Flow

Collaborating closely with the lead iOS and Android developers, I owned the design of the device onboarding experience—focusing on core platform logic and delivering a frictionless, intuitive user flow.

With a tight launch window and multiple post-launch updates planned, the onboarding experience had to work seamlessly from day one. This was the user’s first touchpoint with the IoT device, and I knew it had to just work—no frustration, no drop-offs, just a smooth start to building trust.

⬆️  Above - The full TRACKER UX flow with screens and supportive details. As the flow evolved, it was important to keep track of the various background processes that would happen as soon as a user begins the onboarding process. 

Onboarding Screens

The First Steps

Once the device onboarding flow was finalized, I designed all key screens required to guide users through setting up their TRACKER device. The final step transitioned smoothly into the map screen experience, which was expertly designed by another team member.

Taking a Tour

Showing Value With Motion 

As part of the onboarding experience, I designed an interactive app tour to quickly highlight the core benefits of SyncUP TRACKER. My original UX recommendation was to keep it concise—no more than three high-impact screens—but when leadership requested more feature visibility, I adapted the flow to meet product requirements while preserving clarity and user focus.

I designed the tour visuals and collaborated with junior designers, mentoring them through the creation of smooth, lightweight Lottie JSON animations to enhance engagement without overwhelming the experience.

⬆️  Above - Visual design for the app tour needed to be informative, cute and animation friendly. Here for example, are early concepts for the Virtual Boundaries and QR code scanning sections.

Mobile Tooltips

Device Onboarding Flow.

Crafting the UX that controlled when and how each tooltip appeared was just as important as their visual design. Every interaction needed to feel purposeful—not annoying or repetitive.

Below, is an example of the simple logic flow behind displaying a tooltip for enabling Push Notifications, ensuring it appeared at the right time, with the right context, for the right user. Designing the logic behind each tooltip was just as important as the visual design.

Errors & Edge Cases

The moments that matter most.

I led multiple cross-functional workshops with iOS, Android, and platform engineering leads to proactively identify and solve error scenarios and edge cases. Each situation was meticulously documented, pressure-tested, and resolved in close collaboration with devs to ensure nothing fell through the cracks.

These flows were a priority for me—because I believe a smooth and trustworthy experience isn’t just about the happy path. Great UX anticipates what could go wrong and makes recovery just as seamless.

A glimpse into the meticulous error-handling work.

Every edge case and error flow was thoughtfully designed, reviewed, and validated with iOS, Android, and platform dev leads to ensure a smooth, frustration-free user experience.

Device Profile

The Personal Touch that Builds Trust

The device profile screen went through dozens of iterations before landing on a clean, intuitive layout that allowed users to personalize their TRACKER devices with ease. From naming their item to assigning icons and details, every element was crafted to feel human, flexible, and easy to update.

This feature gave users a stronger emotional connection to their devices—reinforcing confidence in the product and elevating the overall experience.

Firmware Update UX

Reliable updates, anywhere.

I collaborated closely with lead hardware developers to design a firmware update flow that handled all key edge cases, including low battery and poor connectivity. This ensured users could update their devices smoothly and reliably, no matter where they were.

Research 

& Data Driven Design 

To deeply understand what people track—and why—the design team conducted comprehensive user research. One key study involved over 200 participants via UserZoom, giving us data-driven clarity around user needs, behaviors, and expectations.

I led the synthesis and presentation of this research, which directly shaped key flows like device onboarding and profile personalization.

Visual Design

& Design Systems

I created custom avatars in Figma for the most common tracking use cases, based on user research and business priorities. These avatars became part of the broader SyncUP Design System—a multi-product effort to unify visual styles across top-performing T-Mobile apps.

The SyncUP TRACKER app was built using the SyncUP Design System—a comprehensive UI library developed collaboratively by multiple design leads, including key contributions from myself.

This system ensured consistent visual design across several T-Mobile apps on both iOS and Android. All components were meticulously crafted and maintained in Figma.

Delivering Results

Elevating the user experience through continuous innovation.

The SyncUP TRACKER app was a resounding success, growing to over 200,000 users across iOS and Android. Through continuous delivery of polished, user-focused updates, we elevated the experience and built strong trust within the user base.

This project was an incredible opportunity to design an innovative IoT-connected product at the forefront of telecommunications technology—pushing the boundaries of what a tracking app could be.

Disclaimer:
The work shown here was created during my time at T-Mobile and is presented solely for personal portfolio use. All visuals reflect my role and contributions, and are shared respectfully to highlight process and craft—not for public or commercial use.

Reflections 

Behind The Scenes

I had the absolute pleasure of working alongside a crew of insanely talented designers and developers at T-Mobile’s Bellevue headquarters. This wasn’t just about SyncUP TRACKER—it was about collaborating across teams to ship a steady stream of exciting feature updates that kept the product fresh and users happy.

From rough mockups to a nationwide user base of 200,000, we built this product together—prototype by prototype, flow by flow, meeting by meeting. And yes, I practically camped out in every available cozy nook and office space, turning ideas into rapid prototypes wherever I could find a seat.

"...He's able to think like an engineer..." 

Mike — Principle Engineer - Android, T-Mobile
September 27, 2023 

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