Redesigning the Dollar rental experience (A Case Study)

Nyesha Viechweg
Nov 6 · 11 min read

Overview

For this project, my UX design team and I were contracted by Dollar.com to redesign a their company’s responsive website. Moving through all phases of the UX double diamond design process, the end of the project resulted in a presentation on our findings, high-fidelity prototype, as well as our next steps to the internal stakeholders.

Problem Space/Area

Problem Overview: Dollar has contracted my UX design team and myself to improve any usability issues on their site, as well as to find a way to incorporate a feature on their site that meets the expectations of their more socially conscientious consumers.

Users/Audience

With the problem space in mind, we knew that our potential users we needed to focus this project on were individuals who rent cars often. Essentially, these are the users we would be designing a solution for, based on their needs, goals, pain points, and behaviors we discover.

Roles/Responsibilities

This was a group project where I worked in a team of four. Together, all members decided on what areas we would work together as well as independently throughout all phases of the UX design process (research, synthesis, re-define, ideation, and deliver).

Throughout our entire design process, we used a number of different tools to create our deliverables. During our research phase we used Google Forms to create a screener survey, and we used Otter to record and transcribe our user interviews. During our synthesize phase we used post-it notes and a sharpie to create an affinity map. During the ideation and deliver phase, we used a pencil and paper to sketch out our low-fidelity paper wireframes, Sketch to create our mid-hi-fidelity digital wireframes, and InVision to create our clickable prototypes.

In terms of personal contributions, I helped a lot with the organization of our visuals design elements. These elements may include presentation layouts, final design outcomes, visual design solutions, and more.

Scope and Constraints

This project took place through October — November of 2019, and lasted for a duration of about a week and a half (including weekends). It included three units in total, each having a set amount of deliverables and due dates.

The biggest challenge to overcome during this project was the amount of time we had to complete our deliverables. It was imperative that we got enough qualitative and quantitative data in order to reference back to, when presenting our potential design solutions.

Our UX Design Process

Research:

For the first phase of our UX design process, we conducted in-depth user interviews to discover what usability issues users were experiencing while renting a vehicle. To get a better understanding of what our user interview goals were, we first developed a topic map to help us generate ideas on various topics to cover.

Topic Map Overview

With the help of our topic map, we were then able to create a screener survey to help us identify and connect with potential users that we could later interview. In order to really identify potential users to interview, we decided that the qualifying criteria for our screener survey would be based on the survey question, “What is the typical time period that you rent a car?” Our reasoning behind this qualifying criteria was the idea that respondents who answered “Yearly” were less likely to give us the qualitative data we needed to develop insights based on our users’ needs, goals, behaviors, and pain points.

Based on the results seen in our screener survey below, we identified five potential users to conduct an in-depth interview on:

Screener Survey Results

In order to meet the goals of our user interviews, we created an Interview Discussion Guide to help guide us throughout the process. We then conducted a total of five different in-person user interviews, where we asked the following topic specific questions (listed below are just a few examples):

· Can you please tell me about the last time you rented a car?

· Can you please walk me through the steps that you normally go through when you rent a car?

· What is that experience like for you?

· How often do you rent a vehicle?

· Is cost important to you in renting a vehicle?

· What service did you use to rent the vehicle?

· How did you rent (online, in person, over the phone)?

· Did you face any challenges while renting the vehicle?

· What do you look for in a company you trust?

· Can you tell me about a time when you purchased an
item or service that was related to a cause? Why?

· Can you tell me about any volunteering or donating
that you have ever been involved with?

Synthesize:

For the second phase of our UX design process, we created an affinity map to synthesize and analyze the data that we collected. Using this method allowed us to find common trends across all of our users in terms of their observations, quotes, and insights.

Overview of our Affinity Map

With the help of our affinity map, we were able to validate the hypothesized problem. The following are the insights that emerged from our affinity mapping, based on the user’s point of view:

  • I feel good when I help others.
  • I prefer to be associated with socially responsible companies.
  • I want a well designed interface when renting.
  • I have my ‘go-to’ companies for car rentals.
  • I prefer to pick up my rental at convenient locations.
  • I rent cars based on the lowest price.
  • I book cars using both mobile and desktop.
  • I choose additional services that will save me time and money.

From our synthesized data (I statements) found in our affinity mapping, both a user persona and a journey map of that user’s experience renting a vehicle had emerged. Meet Anthony!

User Persona
User Journey Map

By creating both these deliverables, my teammates and I were able to get a deeper understanding of what our user’s needs, goals, pain points, and behaviors were, and what opportunities we needed to create to improve their experience renting a vehicle.

Re-define:

For the third phase of our UX design process, we had to first identify the problem in order to design a solution. We developed a problem statement that included our insight, persona, user problem, and the opportunity:

People who rent cars are primarily focused on cost and convenience, and the emerging popularity of the socially-conscious consumer is affecting the way that people interact with businesses.

Anthony has to travel often for work, but has a limited budget. In addition, he likes to give back to his community, but does not have as much time for social causes as he would like. How might we help Anthony find a car rental company that fits within his budget and gives him an opportunity to practice social consciousness?

Ideation:

For the fourth phase of our UX design process, we conducted two rounds of a design studio in order to develop ideas and generate potential solutions for our low to mid-fidelity wireframes.

Before we conducted two rounds of a design studio, we first conducted a usability test on dollar’s current mobile site to discover any usability issues. With the results from our usability test as well as our problem statement in mind, our design studios were focused on designing solutions that would:

  • Improve the usability issues within dollar’s current mobile site
  • Help Anthony rent a car while staying within his budget
  • Incorporate a new feature that would meet the expectations of dollar’s socially conscientious consumers.

As a result of both design studios, we were able to bring all of our ideas together to generate four major design solutions to be implemented within Dollar’s mobile site:

Ideas Combined from Design Studios 1&2

CSR Campaign Screen: We wanted to incorporate a corporate social responsibility campaign based on reducing carbon footprint. “For every 20 miles you drive, Dollar will plant one tree in your name.” This campaign would allow users to give back to their environment by practicing their social consciousness. We called this idea the “Growth Initiative.”

User Login Screen: We noticed users were having difficulty finding where to sign into their user accounts. We then created an easier way for Dollar members to sign into their accounts by creating a separate page for the user login, accessed through the user profile interface icon we also implemented.

Vehicle Selection Screen: We noticed that Dollar has a lot of vehicle selection options for the users to choose from. In terms of saving time and money for the users, we integrated a filter feature to help them narrow down the vehicle selection options.

Add-Ons Screen: Another thing we discovered in our usability test was that users did not understand how to use their rewards points on their purchase. To resolve this issue, we created an easier way for dollar customers to actually use their rewards points.

Overview of Low-Fidelity Paper Sketches/Overall User Flow

Above we can see an overview of the overall steps Anthony will take on Dollar’s mobile site. Anthony will begin with signing into his account, reading about our CSR campaign, selecting a vehicle, using his rewards points, and then checking out.

With the help of both Sketch and InVision, we then created our mid-fidelity wireframes and prototype in order to test our design solutions in another round of usability testing. Our scenario and tasks were as follows:

Scenario
You have to travel to Boston for work from 11/7–11/10, leaving from JFK airport. You decide to book a car from Dollar.com because you have an account, and you can earn rewards points. You also happen to be interested in learning more about how Dollar.com contributes to social causes.

Task 1
Sign into your account and find out how many member rewards points currently have.

Task 2
Discover what Dollar’s Growth Initiative campaign is about.

Task 3
Use your rewards points to book an intermediate sized car.

Below is a walkthrough of our mid-fidelity prototype, along with the user flow of the tasks we gave to our participants during the second round of usability testing:

User Login Screen

Task 1: (User Login Screen) Users will start on the homepage of the Dollar mobile site, click on the user profile interface icon, sign into their account, and view the amount of rewards points they have within their user profile menu.

CSR Campaign Screen

Task 2: (CSR Campaign Screen) Users will start on the homepage of the Dollar mobile site, click on the “read more” link on the Growth Initiative CSR banner, and read about Dollar’s CSR Campaign.

Vehicle Selection Screen

Task 3: (Vehicle Selection Screen) Users will start the car renting process by typing choosing location, date and time and click search. Once that is done they will use the filter feature to search for an intermediate vehicle to rent.

Add-Ons Screen

Task 3: (Add-Ons Screen)
Once the users have chosen the intermediate vehicle, they will then move to on to the add-ons screen where they will be given the option to use their reward points.

Below are the results we received from the second round of usability testing. Our results include what worked in our design, and what didn’t:

Usability Test Report (Task 1)
Usability Test Report (Task 2)
Usability Test Report (Task 3)

Deliver:

For our fifth phase of our UX design process, we made iterations on our mid-fidelity wireframes in order to create our hi-fidelity version. In order to do this, we had to focus on what our minor issues were in our mid-fidelity wireframes. Our iterations to our design is as follows:

Hi-fi Revisions for Task 1:
For Task 1, in our mid-fidelity prototype, users had a hard time immediately finding the rewards points at the bottom of the screen in the user profile. To solve for this, we moved the rewards points identifier from the main profile screen to its own screen, and we included a link to it within the “My Profile” navigation menu.

Usability Test Report (Task 1)

Hi-fi Revisions for Task 2:
For Task 2, we increased the size of the CSR Campaign link to cover the entire banner, making it more accessible and easier to navigate to. We also included a section within the user profile that let users know how many trees have been planted in
their name.

Usability Test Report (Task 2)

Hi-fi Revisions for Task 3:
For Task 3 in our mid-fidelity prototype, majority of users misinterpreted the label “My Express Rewards Points = 500 points” as a button. To resolve this, we changed the design of the label by getting rid of the black outline, changing the text to say “Apply My Express Rewards Points” and increased the size of the toggle.

Usability Test Report (Task 3)

In the end, my teammates and I successfully completed the project at hand. As seen in our last round of usability testing report, the score for our high-fidelity prototype scored successful with a 3/3 on all all three of our tasks.

For the last step of our deliver phase, my teammates and I also designed three different screens for Dollar’s desktop version of their company site. We used the results found in our usability testing report to implement specific design features over to the desktop version:

User Login Screen
Homepage Screen
CSR Campaign Screen

Outcomes/Results/Next Steps

Throughout our UX design process, we were able to see all stages of what Dollar’s mobile site is versus what it could be. Firstly, we successfully made it easier for users to rent with Dollar while staying within their budget. Secondly, we successfully resolved the usability issues Dollar was having on their mobile site. Lastly, we were able to integrate a feature that catered more to Dollar’s socially conscientious consumers.

In terms of next steps, there are a number of things we would like to focus on:

  • We plan on making even more site improvements
  • We plan on finding ways to make our Growth Initiative Campaign feel more informative towards the users in terms of what they are doing to contribute
  • We plan to conduct a usability test on our Second Breakpoint
  • Lastly, we plan on improving the experience on Dollar’s site for first-time users

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