SimpleTire Brand Redesign.
OVERVIEW
Project Brief
SimpleTire is like Wayfair for tires. Instead of holding inventory, they, essentially, put buyers and sellers in touch, helping customers find the best deals and then also help them schedule any subsequent installation and maintenance.
The Problem
Though business was steady, the company seemed to only attract car experts leaving the majority of the marketshare to big box stores like Walmart and chains like Pep Boys. When non-experts did use the site they often found the process of finding the right tires extremely complex. Additionally, the site seemed to have some usability issues around checkout and search.
The Goal
Taking inspiration from brands like Dollar Shave Club and Warby Parker, senior management wanted to do something “Transformative.” The goal was not only to make the shopping process easier but to change the way people bought tires online. A secondary goal was to ensure that, by simplifying our process, we did not alienate the die-hard expert car enthusiasts that were the core of our business.
Team
I worked in a cross-functional team. As the main UX/UI designer, I was involved in all phases of the project, from mapping out the problem to delivering final designs. We partnered with a branding agency to help us develop a new manifesto, tone and voice, however the majority of the design work was done in house by my team.
Responsibilities
User Research, UX Design, Visual Design, Prototyping and Testing
“Sailors in a sea of sameness.”
Walmart.
There are definitely commonalities in regards to how users purchase tires online. During market research we uncovered that sometimes users do not even know what site they are purchasing from and are just driven by price.
SimpleTire.
For the most part the burden is placed on the user to know facts about their car and their tires with systems offering little in the way for help. Plus the current site was not very user friendly.
PepBoys.
Complicating things, is that the process of buying tires, even by self-proclaimed car enthusiasts, is usually seen as a necessary evil, a purchase like buying insurance or making a utility payment; an action that is expensive but does not deliver much perceived joy.
Getting to know you...
We knew that the majority of our business was centered around “Kyle,” a guy who could take a car apart and and put it back together over the course of a weekend. To reach a broader audience we embarked on three weeks of user testing doing 24 interviews, primarily with subjects identified as our future state user. We also did a series of quantitative research like exit and entrance surveys and ran A/B and pilot programs to understand our audience. To help with the current usability issues we employed Fullstory to help us monitor user behavior.
During this process I lead the development of our screener and script, worked alongside marketing to develop surveys and A/B tests and moderated several of our interviews.
With the help of the entire team, I lead the development of 3 primary and 3 secondary personas.
We have goals...
Taking the results of our research we conducted design thinking exercises brining in subject matter experts and, step by step, involving the entire company in our process. We wanted everyone to be a part of the process. We arrived at a manifesto and six key pillars that would drive everything we did from this point on.
Something for everyone…
For Experts.
To accommodate our expert users we added a “Pro” button to most pages. Pro pages went into much greater detail than the average user would typically require.
To reinforce the theme that the user was in a special section we used a different color scheme than the bright colors used on the rest of the site. During our research, experts seemed to prefer the darker colors and stated that it reinforced the “professional” look.
For the rest of us…
The majority of the site spoke to our desired customer base. The system guided users through the process allowing for multiple search styles and methods. Users were given enough data (with always the option to get more) without being overwhelmed.
Earn trust with data.
Our research showed that customers did not put much faith in typical retail callouts like “lowest price” or “great value.” What they did respond positively to was metrics like what was selling well in their area or the most popular item for their car.
We ran A/B test to determine the most effective data points and sprinkled them throughout the design.
Micro Moments.
A big part of transforming the brand and standing out from the sea of similar retail sites was coming up with a list of places in the user journey where we had the opportunity to delight. These “micro moments” could be anything from a line of text reassuring a potential customer about a purchase or just something to make them smile Here’s some examples below.
Location & Cars.
Implicitly grabbing a user’s location from their device, or by them explicitly telling us tell location we could customize the backgrounds. Users from Colorado, for example, might get mountains whereas users in Philadelphia would see a cityscape. Additionally, if we knew a users vehicle we could change the car icon to match their ride.
Take the weather with you…
Our research showed that weather and location played a huge part in driver’s buying decisions. If we know your location we could also make the “weather” on the page change and serve content that was relevant to the conditions in your area.
Be nice!
To complete the transformation we stepped away from too much technical or instructional language and talked to people like… people. To reinforce this we sprinkled throughout the site plenty of different ways to communicate, get help, ask questions and of course smileys. Here’s some examples how the creative translated into ads.
“A Modular, Flexible Design System.”
From my experience at the Wall Street Journal I knew that the only way to support a concept like this would be develop a flexible design system based on individual modules. Just as the Journal could easily update/replace any piece of content based on the situation at hand, we could do the same with our content.
To achieve this I lead a content inventory to capture and catalog a list of existing assets. We then turned to Figma to start designing a design system that would accommodate our needs. Figma allowed us to easily update and maintain the system and allowed stakeholders to easily review and add their comments right into the design. Here’s a more detailed example, and another.