A New Journey of one car Rental Company — UX Case Study
Responsive Website: Dollar.com
Overview
For this project, we were a Mighty Four, a team of 4 General Assembly students. Our assignment was to resolve usability issues occurring on a responsive website of the Dollar.com car rental company. Also, we were empowered to incorporate a corporate social responsibility campaign to meet the expectations of more socially conscientious consumers.

The usability testing of the existing mobile website Dollar.com company revealed a lot of usability issues. There is no opportunity to log in to My Profile from Mobile devise. Users can’t customize their search and have to scroll all the page down looking for a certain type of vehicle. Another confusing thing on this site is Dave Ramsey’s personality, placed in the middle of the screen.


Maybe Dave Ramsey was a well-known person years ago and the company uses his personality to build a customer’s trust. But using a celebrity, who is not famous anymore, doesn’t work well for the company now. Users get angry, they feel stupid, like they missed something.
— “Why I don’t know this person?”
Users don’t like to feel confused. They want to leave this site and never come back. Some of the users said that they would not rent a car from this company because the site doesn’t evoke any trust.
Our process
Guided by the double diamond design process, we used relevant methods listed below to design the right thing and design it right.

Research
We used a screener survey to select users for the interview. Based on the results, we identified 5 users. The qualifying criteria was based on the question: “What is the typical time period that you rent a car?”.
Any respondent that answered “Yearly,” was disqualified. The goal was to interview respondents with notable preferences regarding car rentals, which would, in turn, provide more applicable data for synthesis. The thought process was that a respondent who rents a car once a year is less likely to be involved with rewards programs, perks, or have strong opinions regarding certain rental car company practices.
Five respondents answered with qualifying answers, and all five people were interviewed.

Topic Map
We define different topics that could be associated with a car rental company. This topic Map helped us to get the questions for the interview process.

Below you can find some user quotes.

Affinity Mapping
Once the user data has been collected we turned it to affinity mapping.
We organized data from the user’s interview and synthesized ‘I’ Statements.
- I feel good when I help others.
- I prefer to be associated with socially responsible companies.
- I want a well-designed interface when renting a car.
- I have my ‘go-to’ companies for car rentals.
Persona
From these I statements and the user research, we got user Persona. Meet Anthony.
Anthony is a Regional Sales Manager, based in New York City. He travels for work at least once a month, which requires him to rent a car in different cities. This requires a lot of research for him to stay within his budget and avoid unforeseen costs. Also, he prefers to be associated with socially responsible companies, and he likes to volunteer and donate to people in need.

Journey Map
This is a user journey map. It is an overview of Anthony’s journey when he decided to rent a vehicle. It is also based on user data. The line here represents the high and low points of his journey.
This map helped us to find opportunities to help Anthony to reach his goals and expectations.
Problem Statement
We developed a problem statement to clarify our synthesized findings, based on our insight, persona, user problem, and opportunity.
Insight:
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.
User & Problem:
Anthony has to travel often for work but has a limited budget. Also, he likes to give back to his community but does not have as much time for social causes as he would like.
Opportunity:
How might we help Anthony find a car rental company that fits within his budget and allows him to practice social consciousness?

To answer this question, our next steps were to conduct a usability test on dollar’s current online mobile site, as well as two rounds of a design studio, to develop ideas and generate potential solutions in our low to hi-fidelity wireframes.
Ideation

For our first round of the design studio, we focused on designing solutions that would help Anthony rent a car while staying within his budget, as well as a way to incorporate a new feature that would meet the expectations of dollar’s socially con·sci·en·tious consumers.
As for our second round of the design studio, we focused on designing solutions that would improve the usability issues within Dollar’s current mobile site.
Here is the idea we generated in terms of our user’s workflow. Based on the ideas we liked from each team member’s sketch, we brought everyone together and came up with this solution for our user workflow. We combined the main ideas from each project and created the final user workflow in a low-fidelity paper sketch.

With the help of both rounds of our design studio and the usability test conducted on Dollar’s current mobile site, we generated four major design solutions, as seen highlighted in red.
- We incorporated a corporate social responsibility campaign based on reducing carbon footprint.
- We created an easier way for dollar members to sign into their accounts
- We integrated a filter feature to help narrow down vehicle selection options.
- We created a simpler way for dollar customers to use their reward points.
Wireframes
Here is an overview of the design of our overall user flow.

MID — FIDELITY WireFrames
We invented a CSR campaign to allow users to practice their social consciousness. We called this idea the “Growth Initiative”. For every 20 miles, you drive the company plants 1 tree in your name. The more you drive- the more trees will be planted.

We added quick access to My Profile” from the mobile site. Now users can go to “My Profile”, login and find out how many Member Reward points they have. Before there was no access to My Profile from Mobile Phone.

Also, we added an opportunity to filter the results when you are selecting a car. Before users could only scroll the page down looking for the desired car.

Besides this, now — users can apply their Reward Points and reduce the Total Costs. That will help users to save money and the company to get returning customers.

Prototype / Usability Testing
After the Prototype was ready, we conducted Usability Testing. Users were provided with the Scenario broken into three tasks. And these are our results.
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
Find out how many member rewards points you have.
Task 2
Read about The Growth Initiative campaign, and then find out how many trees have been planted with your help.
Task 3
Use your rewards points to book an intermediate-sized car.



In regards to the Hi-Fidelity Prototype, we made revisions based on our Mid-Fi usability testing. For the first task, we moved the Rewards Points identifier from the main Profile Screen and included it within the Express Rewards menu.

In regards to the usability test for this task, 3/3 users were able to log in to their member profile and locate their rewards points with no issues. this test was scored a success.

For the second task, we increased the size of the CSR Campaign link to cover the entire banner.

With regards to the usability testing on this task, 3/3 users were able to learn about the CSR campaign and discover their member contribution, but: 2 /3 users said that they wanted to access their member contribution information from the growth initiative homepage banner. This task was scored a success.

For the 3rd task, “Use your rewards points to book an intermediate-sized car” we changed the layout for applying rewards points toward the total cost of the car.

With regards to the usability testing for this task, 3/3 users were able to book a car using their rewards points with no issues. this task was scored a success.

Our final step in the process was to design a second breakpoint for the Dollar.com responsive website. We redesigned the homepage to include the Growth Initiative campaign, which will link back to the user’s profile to show them their contribution.

Outcomes / Results / Next Steps
In terms of next steps, we have several site improvements that we would like to make, namely that we would like to create a link from the Growth Initiative campaign screen to the User Profile screen.
Overall, the project was successful, as we solved Anthony’s problems concerning usability on the mobile site, and we have allowed him to practice social consciousness by continuing to use Dollar.com for his work needs.
Site Improvements
- Create a more intuitive link from the Growth Initiative campaign screen to the User Profile screen
- Usability Testing on Second Breakpoint
- Create a secondary persona for first-time car renters and work through UX process
