PRODUCT-SERVICE SYSTEM · TELECOM
Open Door
A home that lets far-away family in, gently, at your own pace.
Client
Deutsche Telekom
Role
Research, concept and visual direction; presenter
Year
2026
Team
3: Aditya Balaji, Stephanie Franchi and me
Format
Design Extensive Workshop · POLI.design × DT
IN BRIEF
PROBLEM
Families who live apart want to stay part of each other's ordinary days, but every call needs planning and every message feels like interrupting.
HYPOTHESIS
If the router every DT home already has can say "I'm around" with a soft glow, families will share presence without pressure, and DT becomes part of an ordinary week.
WHAT I OWNED
The research and the story: I synthesised the interviews, brought in the Andean lens, set the deck's visual system, rendered the router with Stephanie, and presented.
WHAT THE CLIENT SAID
DT: "You showed incredible forward thinking." Their hardest question, what happens when the novelty wears off, is the one we're now designing for.
From "Should I call?" to "the door is open if we both want it.
Closeness by appointment
Deutsche Telekom asked us to turn a utility people check into a brand that shows up in their lives. Our driver was the distributed family: one family, many homes.
We listened to families who live apart: 10 interviews, 10 survey answers and one self-observation, across six countries of origin.
"I wish we were able to see more of what we're doing day to day."
Most families don't schedule closeness. They share small things all day: a photo, a reel, an "I'm okay". But reaching out still feels like effort:
- calls depend on both people being free
- small moments stay unseen unless someone shares them
- wanting to connect doesn't mean knowing when to call
Value in an ordinary week
DT's brief set the bar in one line: "Whatever the entry point, the value should hold up in an ordinary week."
Customers see DT as a utility, and revenue per mobile customer has fallen 45% in ten years. Any idea had to say what it does for the family, and what it does for DT: acquisition, retention or growth.
Our goal: help families feel part of each other's days, without adding one more chat or one more call.
The research pointed to a place nobody owns. WhatsApp and iMessage own the conversation. The space between two homes has no product in it, and DT is already inside both.
The door is open if we both want it
We believe that if the router every DT home already has becomes a place for family, people will share presence without pressure, and DT will matter in an ordinary week.
The router learns three signs:
- Presence: a soft glow on the wall says "I'm around". No reply expected.
- Memories: chosen photos stay in view until new ones arrive.
- Belonging: small rituals, like a good morning across time zones.
Nothing appears unless someone chose to share it. No tracking, no location.
Relatives join from the phone they already have, on any provider, with no DT contract. The router comes first; the repeater, the TV and the remote speak the same signs later.
Riskiest assumption: that a glow keeps meaning something after the first month.
How we'd know
These are the metrics we presented. None has been measured: Open Door is a concept.
- Retention: 12-month churn of Open Door households against comparable ones.
- Acquisition: invited relatives who join within 30 days, and how many later become DT customers.
- Growth: households that add a second product from the family.
Proposed after the review: one guardrail for the risk DT asked about.
If signs per family drop by half after three months, the glow has become wallpaper.
What I owned
Three people, about two weeks: Aditya Balaji, Stephanie Frachi and me.
I owned the research and the story it told. I synthesised the interviews into the participant maps and the three moments of need, and brought in my own family as the self-observation.
I brought the Andean lens: Ayllu, family as reciprocity, and Khipu, shared memory kept across distance. It widened what we meant by a household.
A household can extend beyond an address.
I ran the idea transformation, kept the master document and the script, designed the deck's visual system, rendered the router with Stephanie, generated the use-case images, and presented. The ecosystem, the revenue model and the use-case stories were my teammates' work.
What DT said
Deutsche Telekom came to the final review to hear the projects.
"For us, in the everyday routine of DT, it is difficult to think further than what's possible. You showed incredible forward thinking."
They called it a very strategic concept, because it builds on what DT already does, and said the team that designs their routers keeps asking how to improve them. Then they asked two questions.
"How will people stay engaged once the novelty wears off?" We had discussed it and didn't answer it well. Our professors gave us the answer: Open Door is the future of the family photo album. Photos, voice recordings, notes that remind you of a relative, and later an AI that turns them into a story, like Google Photos, but with memories shared on purpose.
"What's in it for a relative where DT has no coverage?" They already join with the free app. After the review we added their own glow on the phone, so they're part of the family's signs without a DT plan.
What I'd change: I argued for telling the story through one person and the people around them. We presented three use cases. One story would have been easier to follow.
Not built, not tested. Prices and willingness to pay are untested.
Next Project
The Switcher →