Arris Surfboard

Most people buying home networking hardware aren't sure what they need. They have to weigh their provider, their speed tier, their home layout, and a wall of specs that mean nothing to them. Then the box opens and setup has to go well enough that nobody calls support.

My role covered requirements gathering, competitive analysis, UX strategy, user flows, interface design, app experience design, and working with engineering across several product and brand initiatives.

Competitive analysis showed how other networking brands handled compatibility, spec density, and setup guidance. Almost everyone made the same mistake: products were shown as spec sheets instead of answers to a question about the customer's own house.

We built archetypes from real purchase and support behavior: the enthusiast who wants control and throughput data, the pragmatist who wants the box that works with their provider, and the reluctant buyer replacing rented equipment to stop paying a monthly fee. Each archetype needed a different way into the same catalog.

Navigation and product pages were rebuilt around compatibility and outcome rather than model number. Product pages led with what the device does for a household, then let enthusiasts dig into channels, standards, and throughput. Comparison and provider-compatibility checks were pulled forward so people could decide without leaving the page.

The mobile app carried the second half of the journey: guided setup, network status, connected devices, parental controls, and troubleshooting. Setup worked like onboarding, with short steps, plain language, and a clear way to recover when something didn't connect on the first try.

Two apps had to solve the same setup problem. SURFboard Central covered cable modems and gateways; mAX covered the mesh Wi-Fi system, where placement and satellite pairing add steps a modem never needs.

Both flows start with the physical device (coax or ethernet, lights, provider activation) before anything on screen asks for a password. After setup, the apps shift to the jobs people actually return for: Wi-Fi quality by room, connected devices, parental controls, and firmware and security notices.

The work spanned ecommerce, support, point-of-sale configuration, and native app surfaces, so consistency had to live in the components, not in a style guide. We defined shared type, color, controls, cards, status states, and setup patterns so the touchpoints matched and engineering could build without reinventing anything.

The ecosystem grew from zero to fifteen million users. Purchase, setup, and management stopped being three separate products owned by three separate teams, and fewer customers ended up in support on the way to a working network.