01
problem
In 2020, stats indicated that car shoppers spent 29 less days in-market before they made a purchase compared to 2017.
This reduction in time researching vehicles only served to highlight the importance of getting the digital experience right, helping to ensure the right content was presented to the customer at the right time, reducing friction in their journey and moving them down the virtual funnel.
Only one in three car buyers know the exact vehicle they want to buy when they start the shopping process.
It was important to provide the car buyer a simple way to identify vehicles that met the list of criteria they had in mind, and be able to narrow the list down getting them into the right dealership.
02
project goal
Refresh the SNI experience to bring it in line with current design language to aid in improving customer engagement.
03
role/team
I was the lead UX Designer, but was also heavily involved as a Visual Designer due to mentoring my Visual Design partner during this project. We worked closely with a Project Manager, BA and a team of Front and Backend Developers, and QA.
The Client, Product Owner and Project Management had already scoped out the project, but upon project kick-off, my team and I reviewed these requirements and came back with additional items, wanting to do a complete visual redesign. Despite some pushback from Client due to time and budget constraints, we were given the green light to include our requirements for this project.
04
business + additional requirements
A. Update page layout
B. Improve Filters visuals & functionality
C. Update Vehicle Cards
D. Update Quick Info Panel
E. Improve “Matching Filters” functionality
05
competitive Analysis discovery
Upon analysis of competing automotive brands, it was interesting to discover similarities and differences between our sites vs. others. Most of the research conducted was to find inspiration for the cosmetic changes we wanted to incorporate for our redesign. But another major focus was to see how other brands handled copy and layout of the results page when filters were applied and no matches returned. We wanted to stray away from using the language “no exact match” because it conveyed the wrong message to the customer.
Since a majority of the updates were being made to the SNI Results Page, we prioritized working on this page first. I delegated responsibilities between my Visual Design partner and I by dividing the page into manageable sections. We worked in a collaborative manner by discussing multiple ideas and creating high-fidelity designs.
06
Design exploration
Filter Options
We looked at various Filter Categories to see where we could improve the UI and functionality.
Vehicle Card
Larger Vehicle Cards allowed for us to explore different options for how to re-imagine the “Quick Info” panel and improve the “Matching Filters” functionality.
07
sni results page iterations
The Results Page looked outdated and was in need of a visual refresh.
Analytics had shown that the “Partial Matches” tab & “Partial Matches” bar had low click-through rates. So we asked ourselves, what would be the most optimal way to layout the search results to improve click-through rates?
Getting rid of the gutter allowed us to create larger Vehicle Cards and give room for a better solution to replace the previous “Partial Matches” bar. It’s made more clear to the customers which filters–they applied–match (or don’t match) the vehicle cards.
Competitive analysis had shown that it was common practice to display all vehicle results on the page rather than hiding them in tabs.
Since a majority of the updates were being made to the SNI Results Page, we prioritized working on this page first. I delegated responsibilities between my Visual Design partner and I by dividing the page into manageable sections. We worked in a collaborative manner by discussing multiple ideas and creating high-fidelity designs.
08
vehicle details page update
Working on the SNI Results Page first helped to inform us on how to approach the redesign of the Vehicle Details Page so that the two pages could align in look and feel. We felt that the page took up quite a bit of valuable vertical space. We also needed to figure out a better solution to include additional vehicle images. For improved SEO purposes, analytics had shown that, the more images, the better.
Getting rid of the gutter transformed the layout, allowing for better use of vertical space and we were even able to increase the size of the image asset.
To allow for this page to support additional images, rather than completely redesigning a new way to view a gallery of images, we utilized existing components within our design system to keep the look and feel consistent and simple.
The “Share Page” functionality was something that was initially proposed by Client. We took the time to include it in our design sprints and got Client approval. But, due to limited time and budget allotted for this project, it wasn’t able to get developed.
09
outcome
Within the first week of launching these new updates, SEO results have shown that there was an increase in click-through rates. Although the results were early and the increase was small, this bode well for the page’s overall improvement and indicated that these updates made a difference.
Once this project was complete, it laid down the groundworks for SNI to become an ongoing project stream for my team. Allowing us to continuously make improvements to this shopping tool experience after I was done with the project.
Partnering with a newly hired Visual Designer, I was put in a position to provide mentorship. I had to simultaneously teach my partner how to comprehend our extensive design system while also delegating project tasks to him as he’s learning. Knowing how overwhelmed he was—having to learn so much in such a short amount of time—I helped with the visual design, as well.
This project was slow to start, with a lot of mistakes that were made during the exploration and iterating phase. It took some time to finally build trust in my partner, but patience really paid off whenever we received positive feedback from the Client about their work.
I also had to build some trust in myself to be able to take on some of the visual design, even though I’m mainly a UX Designer. It’s definitely a great feeling to know I was able to contribute both my UX and VD skills successfully to this project.