Challenge

Having spent the bulk of development time optimizing Chrome's showcase car buying configurator to reflect the company's core strength (data integrity), Chrome knew it needed to shift gears and catch up on product usability. To achieve optimal usability, Chrome commissioned a User Centered Design redesign approach to overhauling their flagship product. The business goal driving the changes were to make the product more attractive to potential portals and car dealerships. Chrome knew that 80% of US car buyers were researching vehicle purchases online. Of those car buyers slightly over 50% were women.

Experience Dynamics started by screening and recruiting consumers with the intention to purchase in the next 30 days, or who had just purchased in the past 30 days. The car buying consumers would be involved in an ethnographic field study: day in the life interviews designed to capture values, beliefs, goals, perceptions and expectations. Experience Dynamics conducted the 'Expectation Profiling' in the native habitats of car buyers: on dealer car lots, at consumer homes and in the workplace.

Experience Dynamics implemented its Rapid Ethnography field study, involving in-depth profiling of car buying users, capturing real-world usage scenarios, user needs and detailed insight into tasks deemed important to car buyers. We asked open-ended questions about car purchasing decisions, upcoming car-purchases and uncovered user goals and personas. In addition, we intercepted actual car shoppers in dealer lots. With the field data, we were able to prioritize features and functionality and to understand how they should best be displayed to make sense and appeal to users.

"I think your User Expectation Profiling document is a big step in the right direction. I have seen how defining a customer experience by segments (e.g. demographic, psycho graphic, behavioral etc.) allows a much richer discussion of the "user profile"/ target market at the PAC/executive level. While we might fight over the relative value of features all day long, we all can easily agree that "Trusting Tina" doesn't want tech specs." - Peter Batten, Chief Strategy Officer, Chrome Systems

Next, in order to validate the new persona based design direction, Experience Dynamics constructed paper-prototype (wireframe) Interaction Design concepts. Experience Dynamics conducted usability testing with design prototypes representing dominant persona scenarios. The usability testing revealed some startling results: So-called 'technical with cars' users did not always remember what trim types were. In addition, the majority of users did not understand or notice design elements considered useful in the usability community in the year 2000, specifically breadcrumb navigation.

Experience Dynamics refined the prototype designs to incorporate error handling, decision support and alternative navigation and conducted another round of low-fidelity usability testing (a type of fast, no frills usability testing) with more real users. We then refined the designs, added screen behaviors and graphic design guidelines and completed the findings, delivering Chrome's development team a user-validated User Interface Design specification.