OVERVIEW
CAR RENTAL APP REDESIGN
A more customer friendly car rental mobile app with improved booking process and enhanced user experience.
Company | Duration | Process | Platform | Tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|
UX Design Institute | 5 months
(Oct 2023 - Feb 2024) | User research, Analysis, Wireframing, Prototyping, Annotating | Android / iOS | Google Slides, Forms & Docs, Lookback, Miro, Figma |
A 5-month long (solo) project where the aim was to create a more customer-friendly car rental app that improves the way you book your next ride. Enhanced rental process is designed to be seamless and intuitive. Ensuring that you can reserve your vehicle in just a few simple steps. With a focus on delivering a more satisfied user experience, I've streamlined navigation and added helpful features to find the perfect rental car quicker than ever.
Where are current apps failing?
Car rental customers often complain that most mobile apps feature non-transparent or even incorrect pricing. These apps include distracting promo banners and login pop-ups, hindering a smooth booking process. Pricing explanation contain confusing acronyms, further eroding trust between end-users and rental companies. This poor user experience negatively impacts rental businesses, resulting in a fewer orders. Below is a problem overview matrix considering three focus groups who are directly or indirectly affected by the issue:
Car rental customers
Non-transparent / incorrect pricing from online rentals create mistrust in customers. Money is a sensitive topic.
Rental companies
Untrusted rental companies receive less orders, because customers prefer renting cars from competitors, who are more transparent with their pricing.
Car manufacturers
More popular car rental companies attract car manufacturers and are subject to get better partnership deals.
Car rental customers
Cancelled booking experience, due to misleading slogans like CDW, LDW or PAI confuse customers.
Rental companies
Confusion in the booking process usually leads to unfinished orders, therefore bringing less profit to rental companies.
Car manufacturers
Less profit for rental companies result weaker partnerships with car manufacturers who help to expand rental fleets.
PROBLEM
PROBLEM
Key insights
Only 27% of research respondents prefer using a mobile app instead of desktop site. Accessing online rental services from a mobile is low.
Only 18% of research participants rated overall online car rental experience as five, the highest possible score.
PROBLEM
User feedback
The average rating for four major car rental company apps in
Google Play Store is 3.65 on a 5-point scale
Hypothesis
More transparent, unambiguous and promo free car rental booking system = more happier customers and higher amount of finished online orders.
DISCOVERY
User research
I used multiple research techniques to validate my findings. A deliberate decision, since using only one data collection method usually creates bias and distorts reality.
01
Competitive Benchmarking
Started off with a research method where it’s not required to recruit any real rental users. Aim was to understand how similar organizations are handling the same problems.
Discovery: one car rental company advertised a 15% discount for online payments. However, when I calculated 15% off €573.76, it wasn’t €500.15 as advertised, but actually €487.70.
02
Online survey
Next, I conducted online survey to understand where rental customers struggle. Another great way to collect quantitative and qualitative data.
From the left side you can read some great feedback received to one of my survey questions: "What would you change about the app you used?"
03
Usability testing
Last, but not least... I conducted usability tests. The most powerful technique for UX designer to reach the audience.
Helen about Sixt
"When using any type of booking sites, I usually do not sign-up places that I do not use occasionally."
Helen about Sixt
"I don't understand what is premium location fee and in which step was it added to my order?"
Mary & Sarah about Green Motion
“I did not understand what CDW means and what are the risk reductions.”
In total of
39 improvements
were discovered
CHALLENGE
Opportunity mapping
Below are the main improvement areas found from user research. The areas highlighted are a result of a thorough analysis. Each improvement area is mapped with respective step in the online rental process. For example: the amount of distracting promotional banners were found from each step along the whole order journey. Filtering & sorting issues on the other hand could be experienced mainly from "Search" pages.
Main improvement areas ? | Which step in rental order flow? |
|---|---|
Support additional payment methods | Payment |
Improve image qualities | Covers |
Fix and improve map functionality | Search |
Improve filtering & sorting functionalities | Search |
Simplify confusing text | Generic |
Reduce the amount of promotions | Generic |
Improve price breakdown | Car Details / Covers / Summary / Payment |
Reduce login popups. Emphasize guest mode | Generic |
CHALLENGE
Redesigned workflow
Converting my findings into Information Architecture (IA) and Flow Diagram, helped me to further understand what redesign decisions are needed. Main focus was now to limit the amount of overall screens, improve functionality in certain areas, make pricing and service descriptions more transparent. Some key redesign decisions emerged:
-
Emphasize guest mode in the booking process and make login, registration pages optional.
-
Remove confusion around pricing logic. Rephrase confusing acronyms like CDW, PAI etc.
-
Fix search filters, sorting and map functionality issues.
-
Remove promo banners or other distracting pop-ups
User mindmap
Below is a simple user mindmap that illustrates what pain points car rental app user is experiencing (red cloud). At the same time, green cloud shows how they think, app should behave - it's called "mental model".
OUTCOME
Early sketches
With the information architecture set, I began to visualize my ideas as low-fidelity sketches. At first, I used pen and paper, where I drew the very first versions of improved layout designs. After that, I took one step further and converted my ideas into digital sketches. Below are some examples of improved screens...
OUTCOME
Visual comparison
OUTCOME
Prototype
Switch to full screen...
IMPACT
Lessons learned
2
...rounds of additional usability tests had to be conducted to validate redesigned app.
1
...new survey sent out to see if improved online rental experience had fulfilled it's purpose.
27%
...faster booking completion from the newly redesigned mobile app.
51%
...higher booking completion rate in redesigned app, compared to competitors.
IMPACT
Final thoughts
Running this project was a steep learning curve. I gained valuable insights from the entire UX/UI process and now have a much better understanding of how to enhance digital user experience. New skills developed using tools such as Figma. If I could change one thing, it would be my time management - spent too much time on some tasks, which I think is a common challenge with first-time projects.
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On to the next one...