Dealer Portal
2 Weeks
Challenge
How might we empower dealer owners to self-enroll so that new locations can offer credit card programs earlier?
Measurement
We’ll know we’re successful when we reduce the number of dealer requests for enrollment form support by 75%.
My Contributions
UX strategy, secondary research, experience maps, user flows, wireframes, usability testing.
A stakeholder interview identifies problems to solve and design considerations.
Dealer enrollment is a lengthy, multi-step, time-based process with many actors.
Enrollments can belong to multiple divisions (credit programs).
Dealers need to be able to self-start without training or significant support.
My Take
Not every project needs or allows for using everything from your UX toolbox. Sometimes, you have to apply what you know about best practices, design the thing and just find a way to do usability testing (it’s still your responsibility).
Experience maps outline the steps taken when a new enrollment is created.
Mapping critical tasks help inform user flows and wireframes, but also creates alignment on what needs to be built and why. For example, mapping the enrollment process uncovered the need for other user types & permissions to be included in the initial release.
Dealer enrollment is a lengthy, multi-step, time-based process with many actors.
Brainstorm sketch
Subject matter experts helped outline how the current enrollment process works, which we applied to our form design.
Our first design did not take into account dealers having to save their progress and coming back later to submit the final form. Fortunately, the Salesforce Lightning Design System has more than one pattern to support segmented, “save and finish later” scenarios.
Wireframe & Prototype
Switching to a different design pattern to handle the step-by-step enrollment model resonated with proxy users in testing.
Enrollments can belong to multiple divisions (credit programs).
Brainstorm sketch
Stakeholders raised concerns over dealers’ understanding that an enrollment could be submitted for multiple programs.
To help everyone imagine how a dealer might complete this task, we looked at emails and phone call transcripts from our support teams. One big takeaway was that most dealers would not be able to complete most of the data we were asking up front.
Wireframe & Prototype
By reducing the information we’d been asking for upfront, dealers could now easily start new enrollments.
Dealers need to be able to self-start without training or significant support.
Brainstorm sketch
I imagined an onboard that would display for first-time dealers, but would that help them get started and be successful?
As the team discussed whether training was needed for dealers to be successful in the portal, I reiterated that any system that requires training is probably not intuitive. We voted to use Salesforce’s in-line Walkthrough pattern to help guide new users.
Wireframe & Prototype
We tested our design with novice users to help ensure even new dealers would be able to complete tasks.
Designing for mobile is not optional.
Following the data I’d collected about our current dealer users, we originally focused on desktop displays. However, in this day and age mobile usability is table stakes. In final design (wireframes), I start with mobile design to ensure critical information is obvious.
Impact
The quick turn-around for this project definitely impacted our ability to empathize with users and understand their needs, but I think we were able to do the best with what we had. Without KPIs in place, though, it’s tough to know how successful the designs are.
Anecdotally, we know dealers have been able to successfully use the portal. Even though we haven’t quite hit the “reduce dealer support by 75%” mark, I believe we’re close and certainly have improved the speed at which dealers can enroll their locations.