ADO is an automotive marketplace that is social empowered to help consumers ease the frustrations associated with the car buying process. The founder was looking for a way to successfully compete with AutoTrader.com in a way that could acquire significant market share in the automotive marketing industry.
The Challenge
Auto Trader’s customers were tired of the high fees imposed on them by automotive marketing platforms in order to get quality traffic to their listings. We had to find a way to get quality traffic in order to charge a much lower fee for dealers to advertise on our platform.
The automotive industry has its own set of problems that the top platforms do not provide adequate solutions for such as incomplete and biased information from listings and sales consultants as well as lack of input from qualified experts.
Other problems include payment calculators that don’t accurately reflect the out the door cost of the vehicle. Other than that, consumers we spoke with confirmed that the automobile purchasing process was way too long and they wish it could be much shorter.
The Approach
Our team’s initial process began with a discussion of our assumptions and challenging what we believed we knew about the automotive sales industry.
Each of us then set about learning all we could on automotive consumers, gathering information from nearby dealers and consumers and identifying the types of people we could learn from, which we then used to schedule and conduct consumer research interviews.
We scheduled a full day at Kendall Toyota, where met and spoke with local consumers, sales consultants, and the general manager of used cars.
We also identified and met with an individual who previously worked for Autotrader.com who gave us insight into some of the internal affairs at the company. He was able to add fresh perspective on problems with the internal sales teams.
OBSERVATIONS AND INSIGHTS
Our team then re-grouped to synthesize what we had learned, and conduct a brainstorming session in which we identified themes, refined our insights, and crafted both frameworks for the problem and ideas for potential solutions. This led us to frame our challenge as:
Auto Dealership
Pain Points:
- No feedback from listings
- High cost of automotive marketing
- Limited listings, images, and videos
- No scheduling tools
- Consumers with inaccurate payment info
Auto Consumer
Pain Points:
- Lengthy research and buying process
- Slow search results due to multiple page search process
- No real sense of account ownership, ability to save cars but not to narrow down and sort lists and share them with others
- Making buying decisions without adequate information from experts
- Cluttered interface with ads all over the place
The Solution
I designed a social empowered platform that allows users to get information on automobile listings by participating in social feedback and ratings. The platform also addresses ux issues such as users going through a lengthy two or three page process in order to perform an advanced search for a vehicle.
The platform gives users the ability to save lists of their favorite cars and share them with friends, family members, and experts they find in the networking area of the website. I added a redesigned payment calculator to address the problem of consumers showing up at the dealership with inaccurate monthly payment information and therefore lengthening the negotiation process and selecting vehicles outside of their budget.
I added an insurance calculator to give users more complete information on the total cost of the vehicle and improve the user experience. In order to address the problem of a lengthy buying process, I brainstormed every part of the process a consumer would experience in order to research and purchase a vehicle to address areas that could be automated, shortened, and improved. Solutions I created include the ability to schedule and track appointments on the platform as well as the mobile app which eliminates the need to find new dealer locations while on the road.
Another feature that shortens the buying process is the ability to create and share lists of prospective vehicles which helps users narrow down their search much faster and even share and get feedback from their shopping team. Another problem I encountered during the design process is the ability to monetize a user after they’ve purchased a vehicle. In order to solve this problem, I designed a marketplace in which users can get discounts on oil changes, car washes, and other auto related services.
Comment panels are placed on each listing to give users unbiased feedback of each vehicle. Users can also go to a separate social page where they can search for all comments related to a specific vehicle query regardless of geographical area. This gives users to ability to receive instant feedback for questions asked by posting recent questions at the top of the page which are viewable by the entire community and not just for that region. Users are able to log into their own portal where they can access multiple lists of saved vehicles, a shopping team that can help them make buying decisions, and a marketplace that can save them money on auto related purchases in the future.
UX Features
I designed the ADO platform to allow users the freedom of their personal viewing preference. You will notice the home page and every other page on the platform has a search bar pinned to the top of the page which eliminates the need to go to a separate page to perform a new search. This improves the ux by reducing the amount of page load time a user experiences during their search.
You will also notice the navigation features allow users to continue browsing previous and next listings whether they’re viewing search results, in the listing details page, or on the listing pop up window. This allows users to browse much faster according to their personal viewing preference.
The final design resulted in a much more technologically advanced platform with intuitive design functionality that made for a much better user interface which significantly improved user retention and viral growth. The new user experience presented a value proposition that was designed to carve out its own market share among the competition.
Desktop Wireframes
Final Mockups
Home Screen
GPS Enabled Home Screen – Automatically presents listings in your area
Choose Your View
Choose Between Slide View & List View – Creates The Best User Experience
Slide View – Scroll or swipe through listings horizontally
List View – Scroll or swipe through listings vertically
Navigation
Main Search Bar – Perform a new search from any page on the platform
No need to go back to a previous page to perform a new search
Body Style Selection – Choose your vehicle type
Make / Model Selection – Select the vehicle type that best interests you
Zipcode Input – Type in your selection or select the nearest neighborhood
Price Range Selection – Slide left or right to select your target price range
User Registration
Registration Window – Pops up when trying to access some of the advanced features of the platform
A user can register a new account by filling in the form or logging in with one of their existing accounts
Comments
Comment Panels – Comment panels are hidden for users that are more interested in listing details, but can be easily accessed by tapping the talk icon
Popup Windows
Listing Details Popup – Provides detailed info about the vehicle without opening the listing details page
Navigate through listings, view vehicle info, talk to the dealer, and schedule appointments… All without changing your view
Share Popup – Allows you to share listings in a variety of different ways
Users can post listings in the online community, share them with a specific user or member of their shopping team, and even share with contacts from their email or social accounts
Listing Details
Displays everything you need to know about the vehicle, navigate through next and previous listings in the same view
Drop Down Menus
Login or register a new account to take advantage of premium features including saving listings, sending and receiving messages, notifications, commenting on listings, and more…
User Account Area
View saved listings, manage appointments, check recent activity, and more…
Dealer Account Area
Manage inventory, update listings, schedule appointments, and more…
New Dealer Registration
Dealers Register Automatically – Seamless registration for new accounts
Automated registration process reduces overhead, while improving the user experience and conversions
