Used Car Search
CLIENT: Edmunds.com // DATE: 2015
FOCUS: Lead Generation, Search Completion
MY ROLE
I was the Lead UX Designer throughout the project cycle from planning and requirements gathering to strategy, wireframing, and user testing. Also collaborated with product, design and development teams to brainstorm ideas and problem solve.
Summary
The Used Car section of Edmunds was reworked to create a streamlined and efficient customer-to-dealer journey, resulting in an increased number of leads and a better process for finding the best car and dealership.
Goal
Revamp a complex used car selection process to be intuitive and efficient for both customers and dealerships, while accounting for expanding datasets and ensuring satisfaction with the new system.
Requirements:
Overhaul a confusing car selection process.
Appeal to both customers and dealerships.
Account for the complexity of used cars and their expanding datasets.
“How Might We” Questions
1
How might we make the discerning shopper feel more confident that the vehicle they’re seeing is real and obtainable?
2
How might we help the shopper find the right car (or reduced decision set) based on their specific requirements?
3
How might we make a lead generation process that benefits both the shopper and the dealer?
User Interviews
Research Goals
Identify existing online used car research sites and what they excel at.
Discover how the shopper constructed their shopping process.
Examine how the shopper engaged with the dealership once their decision has been made.
Analyze how the shoppers emotionally attached themselves to their search.
Identify the strengths & pitfalls of the current system.
In-Person Interviews
After each interview, we huddled together to amass our notes, conglomerate the redundancies and then pinpoint what was important to each customer. This process helped flesh out their “personality” when it came to shopping. Their ticks, their processes, their emotional connection to this process was subjective and fascinating.
These interviews allowed us as researchers to observe the customers in their natural settings, providing context for their purchasing decisions (like custom spreadsheets and hand-written notes). Furthermore, these interactions helped identify areas of the process that could be streamlined, resulting in a more efficient and satisfactory experience for the used car customers. Thus, conducting in-person user interviews was a valuable tool that can helped us gain a deeper understanding of our customers and ultimately improve the car buying experience that benefitted both customer and dealer.
Brainstorming on the persona’s user experience through the buying process.
Personas
Findings
Our first focus was on conducting user interviews to discover shopping techniques and viewpoints on Edmunds current processes. Next, was to interview current dealerships and log their needs and frustrations. Merging the two became the initial hurdle. Search results became essential but we found used car buys don’t do the same kind of searching that new car buys do. They’re searches are specific and their needs are based on either immediacy or romanticism.
SHOPPER INSIGHTS
1
Every shopper searches for a corroborating story beyond the basic facts as a gut-check during the car buying process.
2
Some shoppers see used cars as temporary while others see them as long-term commitments.
3
Every shopper tests a car, but those tests rarely look like the test drive dealers tend to think about.
4
While best practices for getting a good deal on a new car are well-known, no one can agree on how to buy a used car.
DEALER INSIGHTS
1
The inventory crunch means choosing between pushing for volume or quality, but not both.
2
The perceived transparency of cost in the new car market has emphasized how opaque the used market continues to be.
3
Used car dealers need to tie the story behind a car to the car’s hard data to come across as trustworthy.
4
The future for used car dealers is in repeat business rather than maximizing margins on any particular sale.
The Solution
The lynchpin to the solution was the Search Results landing (after a user entered their desired parameters) that quickly gave them a list of local vehicles with the top details highlighted per vehicle. The most important detail that we gleaned from our interviews is “Is this car real?”, therefore it was necessary to give the Stock#, VIN and Mileage per vehicle. These elements gave confidence to the user that what they were looking at was not only a real car, but possibly available and not a fake listing that would just get them into the dealership (a common problem for customers).
Notable Features
Comparable Searches
Allowing the user to create single make focused searches and then quickly compare another focused search to any prior built searches was important as the customers usually were already make/model decided when beginning their search.
Real Listings
Having all parameters visible when researching results was key in allowing users to better understand that they were looking at a real vehicle sitting on the lot.
The top priorities being:
Pictures
Used vs. Certified Pre-Owned
Location, Phone Number
Stock and VIN numbers
Mileage
Price
Interior, Exterior Color
Multi-Parameter Search
Searching for Used Cars can be tricky. Not only do you have the vehicle’s aspects from the dealer, but you could also have a number of after market parts, additions or new capabilities added after purchase. Accounting for those within a search proved difficult but Used Car buyers are more than happy to put in extra effort when it comes to finding their perfect car.
Research & Analysis
After teaming up with data science, we embarked on A/B testing on our website, where we presented search parameters to users at earlier stages of their journey. This enabled them to target their search better and resulted in a smaller but more refined results page, ultimately leading to increased dealership leads. The implementation of these changes on the live site was successful. However, despite our best efforts, the complete overhaul of the product never materialized during my tenure on the project.
% Lead Generation Completion Sent to Dealers
User Flow
Our flow was simplified from earlier versions of the Used Car search (which just mimicked the New Car search and was limiting when it came to the complexity of used cars). Customers wanted a quick process, dealers wanted lead efficiency to increase the overall number of leads, therefore, increasing sales. We decided to break the flow into three stages: Interest, Discovery and Confirmation. This allowed us to think more succinctly when it came to process and how it affected users as they became customers.
Concepts
Search Landing
Search Overlay
Key Takaways
This process afforded me valuable insights into the necessary features for an MVP and the delicate balance between an ideal world product and practical solutions.
My collaboration with a skilled Product Manager provided me with the opportunity to engage with stakeholders and gain a comprehensive understanding of the product's impact on the company's success.
As a key player in conducting user interviews, I was often on the frontlines, visiting users in their homes to witness firsthand how they shopped for a significant purchase such as a vehicle.
This experience was enlightening as I got the rare opportunity to work with such a talented team and revealed surprising details about user processes, item selection and emotional bonding to the purchase of vehicle.