Automotive Company (Client Project, Publicis Sapient)

Automotive Navigation

Outcomes

  • Conducted Current State, Comparative, and Competitive Analyses to identify strengths and weaknesses of the navigation on the client’s website and competitors’ websites.

  • Iterated variations of the website’s organization and layout using a Site Map and Card Sorting.

  • Handed off annotated designs showing the recommended navigation design to the client.

Role

User Experience (UX) Designer

Timeline

July 2022 to December 2022

Team

2 Experience Leads, 2 UX Designers, 2 UI Designers, 1 Content Strategist, and Client Stakeholders

Tools

Figma

What’s the ask?

Through analytic data, Automotive Company noticed that many of their customers struggled to find the pages they were looking for and often strayed away from the website after numerous unsuccessful clicks. In response to this realized struggle, the company desired to re-imagine the way their customers navigate through the current website. How might we think outside the box and improve the usability of the website, while keeping up with the aesthetic of modern design?

How did I approach the problem?

Understand how the existing header-navigation worked.

I conducted a Current State Analysis to understand the existing functionality of the header. Doing so helped me to identify what currently works well and opportunities for improvement when navigating the website through the header,

Identify pain-points and successes within in-page navigation.

I continued assessing the current state of the website by conducting a Heuristic evaluation to understand how customers are currently able and unable to navigate through the websites from within the webpages rather than the header.

Recognize how competitors are approaching the problem.

After developing an understanding of how Automotive Company currently deploys their navigation functionality, I carried out a Comparative Analysis and a Competitive Analysis to explore how other companies successfully and unsuccessfully organize and utilize navigation on their websites.

Ideate.

I continued the process by exploring numerous versions of a Future State Site Map and Card Sorting Sessions to brainstorm how the organization of the header could be refined in away that makes sense to customers and helps customers find what they are looking for more quickly.

These iterations included wireframes of both “Small viewport” and “large viewport” visuals to gain insight on how design decisions may scale.

Incorporate feedback and ideate again.

Following design and UX artifact explorations, I received and incorporated feedback from the design team. The design team chose 2-3 from the many options to receive feedback on from the client, In response to all feedback, I refined explorations as needed. This process repeated until the design team and client agreed on the desired direction.

Hand-off recommended designs.

Succeeding multiple rounds of feedback and incorporating feedback, I handed off final designs that improve the way in which a customer is able to navigate the website with ease and minimal clicks. I included interaction annotations with the deliverables to inform the client’s development team of how components are expected to function.