Client: Lithia Motors
Product Visioning
2019-2020 — Digital Service Design
Product Vision - Driveway
Role: Product Design Lead, Researcher
Client: Lithia Motors
It was a moment in the project where we started to shape the details that would bring this service together. Two designers and I hosted a 3-day service blueprinting and product vision workshop with lead product owners and leaders of Driveway. During the 3 days, we had in-depth conversations about the service journey through a variety of design immersion exercises that:
Helped leadership get closer to customer needs
Identify gaps in the customer journey
Map an ideal customer journey
Listed various actors that play part in the journey
Discussed success metrics
Mapped a short-term project timeline
The workshop room with Driveway’s CEO, Chief of Technology, Lead Product Owners, and on the Detroit Labs side - Designers and Lead Engineer
⬆️ Incubating the service
Results from the one thing exercise, participants were prompted to answer “What is the one thing that deserves priority on the project moving forward?”
Workshop Results
Through empathy mapping and reviewing results from various user tests, we brought leadership much closer to understanding customer needs. The workshop was a crucial point in the overall project, it was the most quoted meeting amongst leadership and completely shaped the remaining service development.
Experience themes came from breaking into groups filling out empathy maps with direct quotes from customers, and thinking in the shoes of someone trying to sell their vehicle. This criteria was used across processes like writing Jira tickets for additional features, and design decision making.
Another key artifact from the workshop was an ideal customer journey map where we broke into phases of service and mapped the steps for each. With this, we drafted an exhaustive list of questions and opportunities where there were clear gaps in what was designed or considered.
Business Goals and Success Metrics
The wildly successful and productive 3-day workshop wrapped with a detailed service blueprint becoming the vision for the entirety of the project moving forward. We broke the blueprint into service phases, identified players and actors within each phase, and synthesized the room’s thoughts into business goals, design hypotheses, and success metrics per service phase.
Project (Disco)very
⬇️ Go-to-market strategy
Product Discovery Activities
User & Key Player Interviews
Persona Development
Customer Journey Mapping
Problem Statements & HMWs
Gap Analysis
Competitive Set Research
Technical Research
️Service Contract
Strategy & Recommendations
Takeaway
Personas helped product owners ideate and empathize with user needs, but they quickly became a burden to designers because of how product development teams would refer to them.
When you’re working towards solving ‘real’ problems — you need to think practical and if features/revisions are direct value-add to the experience.
Project Disco
Post-workshop, teams were split into focuses. I was responsible for continued shaping of the design of service (customer ex, CX) through a deep product discovery process. The discovery process included interviews with key service players, analogous/competitor market analysis, unearthing problem/opportunity spaces, researching third-party tech, and feature set analysis. The process was robust and it involved a team of two design researchers, a technical analyst, and a project manager. Product discovery occurred while other teams focused on building out aspects of the product (marketing, shop/ecomm, and service learning) and we’d share-out research findings periodically.
One of the first steps in product discovery was developing user personas allowing teams to rally around user attributes for feature design. Personas helped product owners ideate and empathize with user needs, but they quickly became a burden to designers because of how product development teams would refer to them. My perspective about personas shifted, and I learned that there are more appropriate times to include them in the design process. When you’re working towards solving ‘real’ problems — you need to think practical and if features/revisions are direct value-add to the experience. Personas are great for marketing and advertising campaigns. 😉
Research Findings
Money is an important factor in every phase.
66%
50%
users negotiated their offers by haggling or competing multiple quotes to get the best deal
50%
users looked for the best deal or chose the cheaper option before they made the decision to proceed the next step
83%
users declined the additional services or packages offered by their dealerships
Users typically do research on vehicles first, then dealerships or sellers
66%
50%
users think a good service history/clean title/one owner is the must-have for the used car they are looking for
50%
start searching dealerships that are close to them
users went to more experienced people around them or seek reviews online for advice and recommendations on their vehicle choices
Users seek convenience in process but also value the quality of the vehicle
50%
50%
users did multiple test drives at different dealerships
66%
of the users felt the car pictures were glamoured online vs. onsite. They want to see it in-person to ensure the car is the exact car they expected before purchasing.
start searching dealerships. that are close to them
The trust between users and service is built by active, timely, authentic interactions in the long run.
33%
50%
said test drive was their most enjoyable moment of the entire car buying experience, either because they can hop on a new car as long as they want, and someone will help them familiarize the car
66%
users mentioned they decided their budget/payment based on income/sponsorship and daily expenses
users said there was 1-2 agents/salesmen helping them at the dealership
Persona Development & User Attributes
Driveway Customer Lifecycle
Product Discovery Wrapped
Our small product discovery team wrapped a bow around the process by doing a round of research readouts — allowing leaders and product owners to pose questions and have healthy discussions. The project lasted three months and covered a ton of ground. The most influential aspect of the process was our detailed gap analysis deliverable. It was as if this process single-handedly taught product owners to think differently, to go deeper with insights, and inevitably encouraged all hands on the project to initiate a much more optimized way of considering each feature.
users feel more satisfied during the service because the customer service actively checks in to meet their needs and responds timely throughout the entire process
After product discovery wrapped, I was placed on the buy & finance team as lead product designer
Next Project: Finance and Checkout