As one of the most popular online automotive marketplace, CarGurus provides transparent pricing, vehicle history, and dealership reviews, helping users make informed decisions through its data analytics.
This makes the selection and purchase process especially critical. With the impact of COVID-19, online shopping experience become more and more important. According to data from Zabra, over half of Americans (54%) would prefer the ability to buy or sell a car without ever leaving home. Additionally, 49% of Millennial women report feeling pressured into buying unnecessary features, compared to 34% of Millennial men.
After helping several friends of my buying vehicle through CarGurus, I realized that something can be designed better, especially for those who has no experience on vehicle selection at all. That is the beginning.....
In this section, I selected the homepage, search page, and listing page as key targets. These are the most frequently visited areas of the site and contain crucial information that can significantly impact the user’s decision-making process.
To better understand users’ needs and identify gaps in the vehicle purchasing process, several interviews were conducted. Through these interactions, different user journeys were mapped. Using qualitative coding methods, key themes emerged.
With a more focused direction, I identified the key pages involved and conducted competitor research to leverage industry best practices. For the listing page, I drew design inspiration from CARFAX, TrueCar, AutoTrader, Cars, and KBB, benchmarking their filter functions. Additionally, I compared these findings with survey research to determine which features hold the most importance for consumers
Based on the research, I identified two key stages where pain points arise during the vehicle purchasing process:
(1) The first stage occurs when buyers are still deciding what type of vehicle they want. The main challenges at this stage are a lack of vehicle knowledge and difficulty recognizing their needs. (2) The second stage involves filtering options to find a competitive offer.
To address these issues, I formulated two ‘How Might We’ questions:
How might we help users better identify their preferred vehicles?
How might we enable users to quickly capture key information?
Based on the primary and secondary research findings, I did a brainstorming by Miro board. Some featured concepts were generated like: Picture Identification, Feature Explanation, and Heuristic Background etc. Two rounds of lo-fi wireframe afterward the ideation which provided a basic structure for the Home, Search and List page of the new re-designed website.
On the home page, my design adjusted the information layout to bring CarGurus's featured research index near to the banner, receiving more click and flow.
On the searching page, the webpage provides users with more prompts to help them recognize their needs.
On the listing page, the vehicle information card redesign focuses on the information density and filtering efficiency, helping user better find the great offers.
