Accenture Industry X.O

Financial Services Institution’s

Vehicle Re-marketing Platform

THE SITUATION

For a little over a year, I worked with a large financial services institutions’s vehicle financing and re-marketing platform. Their auto re-marketing website was among the first, but it had not been updated in 20 years.

The UX team for this project initially included three Researchers and two Designers, but after a few months I became the sole UX Researcher working with two Designers.

Our UX team worked closely with the financial institution’s UX Researchers and Designers, and our own and the financial institution’s developers, to redesign the vehicle re-marketing website from end to end.

Our goal was to go from this:

To this:

MY ROLES ON THIS PROJECT

• Work with client leadership to identify areas of research

• Outline and present monthly research agenda (rotating between on-site and remote research)

• Work with our own and client designers to develop research tools

• Work with client to identify research participants and locations, and to schedule research

• Conduct research, compile, and analyze research data

• Include the wider team (client, developers, designers) in research by inviting them to watch remote testing, come along for field research, and attend monthly research read-outs.

• Present research findings and recommendations to client

• Ensure recommendations were added to developer backlog

• Follow recommended changes in Jira as they moved through backlog

• Outline a UX strategy for the client to follow after the end of the engagement

A DEEP DIVE INTO ONE RESEARCH FOCUS

Towards the end of the project, our development team was rolling off, but the UX team was asked to stay on and conduct exploratory research focused on the process of posting cars. During my time with this client, I read widely about the automotive re-marketing industry, and of course spoke regularly with people who used our client’s platform. I used this information to ensure the UX team had a consistent, deep engagement with the industry as a whole. As such, when the vehicle re-marketing posting process was suddenly significantly disrupted by a number of nimble startups, we were ready to support our client. We proposed a three month long deep dive into the posting space that would help us present the client with a roadmap for tackling disruptor challenges head on.

The three month long research agenda included:

• Extensive Competitive Analysis

• Contextual Inquiry

• Secondary Source Research

• Prototyping

• Testing our solution

After conducting preliminary contextual inquiry, extensive competitive analysis, and secondary source research, we proposed a posting solution that would allow members of a reconditioning team to easily coordinate and track all of the tasks that need to be completed before a car is posted for sale. For the client’s privacy I cannot get into too much detail regarding our solution.

In order to define the problem space and the many personas impacted by this solution, I paired with one of our designers to conduct several days of on-site contextual inquiry at a car dealership in the Midwest.

CONTEXTUAL INQUIRY

Working on my own at times, and with a pair partner at other times, I shadowed a few car detailers, two mechanics, a freelance photographer, and a reconditioning manager to get a better sense of how communication flows worked in the dealership during the reconditioning process before the car was posted for sale.

ANALYSIS

I took all of the data we collected and used it to pull together a heat map of different persona’s paths through the dealership as they worked on getting the car ready for posting. I started off with sketches and then moved to higher fidelity.

HEAT MAP

In order to demonstrate the complexity of the current reconditioning and posting process, I drew up a heat map of each persona’s physical journey through the dealership throughout the day.

Here the various personas come together in the high fidelity heat map in order to demonstrate the intensity of interaction between team member as they work to pull together all of the components needed to post the vehicle for sale. I wanted to clearly show that communication was happening through multiple channels—text, in-person chats, and multiple (at times redundant) internal tools.

JOURNEY MAP

Next, I sketched out the “as is” journey map. The map identifies all of the tools used, and brings the stories of each persona together into a single narrative.

PAIN POINTS

Analysis of the process revealed a number of pain points:

• All personas spent time searching for misplaced keys

• Cars were photographed several times

• Cars were inspected multiple times

• Records of processes were kept in multiple locations, many of which did not connect to other systems

• Personas used many different modes of communication during the reconditioning process

OUR SOLUTION

Our future state journey map demonstrated how our posting solution would simplify the current process, eliminating redundant tools.

In order to protect our client, I cannot share the details of our proposed solution, but it was inspired by Google Docs and Task Rabbit.

CONCLUSIONS

This research helped the design team further refine our solution:

• Communication between all vehicle posting team members would be centralized and available as mobile app

  • All service techs had smartphones

  • Eliminates need for them to buy computer

• All photographs available in single system

• All inspections available in single system

• Reconditioning Manager would be able to track and manage all vehicle posting work progress through single platform

NEXT STEPS

The designers on my team built an Axure prototype of our vehicle posting solution. I paired with one of those designers to test that prototype in the field, solicit further feedback, and establish a roadmap for further refinement.

WHAT I LEARNED

• How to offer timely, informed, supportive, and strategic advice to a client under a great deal of pressure

• How to build a deep level of trust and credibility with the client over time. Long after our developers had rolled off the project, our three person UX team remained at the request of the client.

• Because this was a longer client engagement, I was able to truly combine my deep academic research skills with UX Research methods, and this gave our client a distinct strategic edge.

• How to offer broad strategic advice about how the client might quickly position their product in a rapidly shifting landscape disrupted by nimble startups.