<aside> 💡 Role: Lead Product Designer Focus: UX Strategy, Design Leadership, and Design Implementation Company: Driveway

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Background

Driveway, a digital platform for buying, selling, and servicing cars, primarily serves customers with lower credit scores. The company wanted to redesign its vehicle checkout experience to enhance the mobile experience (~80% of customers transact on a mobile device), streamline navigation, and improve affordability.

Following a company reorganization, the project lacked strategic direction. As Lead Product Designer, I took ownership of the UX strategy to accelerate its development.

Objectives, Approach, and Output

A unique design leadership approach was needed to collaborate with product and engineering teams and get the project back on track.

Objectives & Approach:

1. Simplified the complex workflow of online vehicle purchases on Driveway.
2. Managed stakeholder expectations with technical feasibility and user experience.
3. Built trust with stakeholders and partners after company re-org.
4. Analyzed and rebuilt user flow for scope refinement and scenario walkthroughs.

Output:

• Aligned features with feasibility, scope, and UX.
• Developed and revised Design System components.
• Conducted Design QA and created design specs to identify and document edge case solutions.
• Created training materials for customer service agents.

Breaking Down My Approach

Design Leadership

I created a comprehensive user flow covering all steps, edge cases, and scenarios to facilitate discussions for this complex and ambiguous project. Using this artifact, we identified problem areas with the existing flow, and engineers were able to create scope refinement documents. Through numerous collaboration sessions with product and engineering, I got leadership buy-in on areas for future enhancement and priorities for the MVP release.

https://whimsical.com/checkout-user-flow-QCppdrrD2fBnWGM8SdmpL8@6HYTAunKLgTXNeU8mmCfdPBpyCW5iMJx5LrQUf6fFsN7Vqb

Breaking Down My Output

Prioritization and Design Alignment

With several future product roadmap items dependent on the new checkout experience, delivering this project was a high priority. I focused on analyzing past design decisions and identifying areas for iterative improvements.

Ensuring designs aligned with the design system was crucial. Using system components reduced engineering effort and ensured clarity and accessibility. We also enhanced design system components, like updating the outlined selector to handle incompatible vehicle incentives, making it more versatile for other areas of the experience.

Edge Case Solutions

Purchasing a car online involves numerous edge cases, and it's crucial to make every scenario clear, especially for credit-challenged customers. Collaborating with product and engineering, I developed an edge case tracker to ensure consistency across similar scenarios and help determine when to launch with a lightweight MVP approach and when it was worth developing a more comprehensive solution.

Co-Applicant Flow