Project Description
I started on the VW account in May of 2017 - at the time, there was 1 full time UX body on the account, no user testing in scope and about 1M in billables for Digital. By the time the account moved from the agency in 2019, the digital retainer was over 3.5M, there were 4.5 UX on retainer and we had spoken with over 700 consumers through usability testing, interviews and diary studies. I played a role in growing that business through advocating through strategy, research and project leadership. Below are a (small) selection of key projects the team took on.
Build & Price: The build & price tool is a complex configurator and pricing calculator that is used by both dealerships and consumers at different stages during the buying process. For this redesign, we rebuilt the platform from the ground up - creating a fully responsive design that worked seamlessly on mobile through ultra-wide desktop. Through insights gleaned from our user research, we integrated the beginning stages of the selector into the model page as users wanted to price as soon as they were in the research stage.
The newly launched Build & Price increased conversions over 20% compared to the previous version and was further optimized through multiple rounds of iterative testing and development. The B&P was designed over 16 design sprints and validated with over 100 consumers, going from paper & InVision prototypes to fully integrated HTML prototypes through the process.
Model Pages: For the 2018 update of the model pages, we shifted the strategy to a consumer lead approach. As we spoke to consumers about their buying behaviour and what details they were looking for when research cars - we noticed a gap in how we were approaching them. Previously, we were presenting content to them by broad features matching the sales materials produced by VW for dealerships. Consumers were looking for specific features, a coles notes version - something that is scannable and is pertaining to what they are looking for. They look for large, immersive imagery - being able to see the vehicle in their life and supporting their lifestyle.
With a team of 4 designers, researchers and writers we went through 20 design sprints and spoke with over 120 users to come up with an approach that integrated the many different ways consumers came into the site, integrated into all the tools we built and had a main KPI to drive consumers through the Build & Price tool. Once the pages were live, we set out to make iterative improvements through analytics and consumer feedback.
Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) Vehicles: The strategy for the relaunched used vehicles platform was two-fold - integrate a new API that combined daily pulls of inventory across all 137 dealerships as well as increase conversions from the site to contact dealers. Our approach for the project started with a discovery phase in which we talked with dealers across the country as well as consumers at different stages in the used car buying process to understand the role a site could play in their journey. How could we differentiate over the competition and why would a consumer come to the brands website vs. a third party website. We settled on an approach that would integrate dealership data into the selected vehicle page as well as provide additional contextual information that only the brand would be able to provide.
Through 12 rounds of iterative design sprints we built prototypes and tested with over 75 consumers to validate our approach. After we launched the new portal, CPO saw its biggest sales quarter ever with consumers reaching out to dealers in new ways they couldn't before.
