Challenge:
Design a new cross-platform website for the new brand on the online vehicle market in Poland.
My contribution:
The Motoke is an online platform for buying and selling used cars in Poland. The old version of the site (Fig.1) wasn't launched because of many reasons. Therefore in November 2018, I got involved in redesigning the page and leading all works towards launching a modern, functional, and above all user-oriented site.
When I started to think about the process of work, I knew that the waterfall model wouldn't be eligible for this case in this case. Both I and engineers who worked with me needed a framework that would enable us to work with small pieces of the system quickly and effectively. Lean UX was an excellent choice.
Because of the essence of the Lean UX, every person involved in work contributed to indicating the assumptions. Unlike requirements, they are only high-level declarations of what we think to be true. Based on them, we can write testable hypotheses in the next step. With that in mind, we pointed out the primary business problem statement and four kinds of assumptions in the beginning: business outcomes, users, user benefits, and features (See Fig. 3 and Fig. 4).
The current state of the online vehicle market in Poland has focused primarily on providing an opportunity to sell and buy cars mainly for advanced users. These services fail due to too expanded features that are difficult to use for inexperienced customers. Our platform will address this gap by building a practical and straightforward site tailored to advanced and non-advanced users.
Having all kinds of assumptions, I was able to build hypotheses that are granular, testable statements. As you can see, each hypothesis consists of assumptions about our business outcomes, users, user benefits, and features that are ways to solve problems and achieve users’ needs (Fig. 5).
I wrote six main hypotheses. However, there was the last necessary step to make before moving on to the design stage. It was impossible to design everything and validate all the hypotheses. Therefore I chose two of the most valuable and riskiest hypotheses and started to think about how to design the solutions for them.
During continual research, I learned that if a new online platform on the market doesn't convey the main message directly and quickly, the probability of failing is very high. Users want to know what goals they can achieve. That is why I focused on a bright, fast message about services provided (Fig. 7).
We believe this [Visitors know that they can buy and sell cars] will be achieved if [both Anna and Julian] successfully [can recognize the services provided] with [a “homepage content” feature].
Sometimes serious problems are hidden, and thanks to exhaustive interviews, we can uncover them. Although the leading Polish automotive ad platforms work well, many users struggle with additional services for their ads. There are too many of them, and it's tough to understand how they actually work.
We believe this [Customers select additional services for their ads] will be achieved if [Julian] successfully [can highlight his ads to sell cars faster] with [a “stand out my ads” feature].
The second solution to the second hypothesis was challenging. In the management panel, I had to place many additional services most reasonably and functionally. Fortunately, there is an interaction design technique that helps us maintain the focus of a user's attention.
(See Figure 8 and Animation).
Thanks to the progressive disclosure, we can reduce cognitive workload. We show the users only the minimum data that are necessary to complete their current task.
The right solution to the first hypothesis was also tricky. You can see in Figure 9 that I put some links in the nav section. One link called "Baza ogloszen" is for the buyers whereas the second one called "Dodaj ogloszenie" for the sellers. In the header section, the "Kupujacy" button is for buyers, but the orange one for sellers. The third section is for the buyers.
The phrase Minimum Viable Product causes much confusion related to the meaning of it. Generally, it is the smallest thing that you can build to test your hypotheses among the users and to get feedback from them. That is why I made the high-fidelity prototype.
I think that the answer is simple. The users who want to buy a car need a functional search form and a readable page with a certain car for sale. If the user clicks the "Kupujący" button on the Homepage, they will be navigated to the advanced search form (Fig. 10).
When people want to buy a car, they don't want to admire the beauty of the page, but they want to achieve their goal quickly. I knew that the ad page should be simple, scannable with a little bit of sophistication (Fig. 11).
I deliver outputs both for desktop and mobile devices at the same time in the majority of my projects. However, the approach is different in this case. The most important are measurable outcomes that can justify the solutions for the assumed hypotheses. After the validation process, the developers will implement the solutions. That moment will be appropriate to design mobile views for the fully validated hypotheses.
We want to be sure that our core solutions are the best for the users, and nobody has trouble using them. Despite this, I designed a couple of easy-to-change mobile views for the presentation's sake that weren’t risky to the whole concept (Fig. 12).
An interactive prototype is one of the best ways to show your solution to the audience in order to validate your hypotheses. You should go out of the building, show users the MVP, and draw conclusions based on the users' feedback. It’s the essence of the UX designers’ work.
I want to point out that interactivity in the below prototype is limited only to the elements that were necessary to validate the two riskiest and valuable hypotheses. You can see the 1.0 version that I showed to the users without any further changes based on received feedback.
I presented the first version of the prototype both to the stakeholders and the users that represent defined personas. I talked with them about the solutions and observed how they accomplished some predefined tasks. Thanks to that, I gathered qualitative data that allowed me to draw some conclusions.
The users recognized quickly the services provided, mainly thanks to the buttons on the header section. Despite this, there were three minor things to improve to say that the first hypothesis was validated. The second solution to the second hypothesis also required some improvements (Fig. 13).
The solutions of the first two hypotheses were fully validated after the second phase of the research (Fig. 14). It was the right moment for the developers to start writing code for the verified solutions. At the same time, I started to design solutions for the next hypotheses.
The users understand the project. They know what the site is about and how they can attain their goals. Some of them also indicate visual appealing. I want to emphasize that the design could be cleaner and simpler based on pure Material Design 2.0. However, it would have required to involve at least one professional illustrator that was impossible in this case. With all this in mind, my overall assessment is positive.
Thanks to this project, I realized that the Lean UX framework is a great choice when you work with a complex system. We focus on outcomes, work with small batches, and eliminate risk and waste. Finally, what is most important, only users can tell us that our work is going in the right direction.
I contribute to the growth of social media by creating some static assets and animations related mainly to education. Both candidates for drivers and drivers love to solve riddles about the traffic law. I care about the content quality, and some samples you can see by clicking on the links above.
