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The Future of CarMax U n i v e r s i t y o f W a s h i n g t o n I n f o r m a

The Future of CarMax U n i v e r s i t y o f W a s h i n g t o n I n f o r m a t i o n S c h o o l T e a m P a r a n o i d G r i m R e a p e r H e a d q u a r t e r s 5 / 2 0 / 2 0 1 2 David Ruiz, Kaleb Lora, Vince Lam, Sean Payne An explorative project to improve the CarMax website by identifying what it’s doing wrong, what is right and where is this technology headed. 1 Project Vision Overview Currently CarMax and other car-‐dealers provide the users with an exhaustive database of every vehicle they have available. For example CarMax has fly-‐out menus with categories of car makes, models, and manufacturing year. The CarMax site also has a well-‐organized index but it does not cater to the user’s perspective, i.e. the divisions are based on vehicle specifications and not user wants or needs. The problem with this kind of service is that it is not how a user thinks. By using an exhaustive list format based off a database schema, current car sites are confusing and feel foreign to a user. Users are confronted with an issue of information overload. Users that are uncertain about their choice vehicle will be overwhelmed by the exhaustive lists. The user is searching for a car that fits their lifestyle and price range. The user then wants to locate a dealership and continue their car search/purchase there. The organization wants users to visit a dealership so that their salesmen can assist the user in buying a car. To achieve the aforementioned goals we plan to improve the site based on the user mental schemas and usage patterns. By creating a website that is separated into lifestyle categories, users without an exact idea of the car they want will easily locate cars based on their interest and price range. The results will be limited to 10 cars that will represent the range of cars in that category. To accommodate for well-‐ educated users, a search feature will be continually visible on the website, allowing the user to search for a specific model. All car models will be contained within the site, but unlike other sites, browsing will only produce a broad representation of the vehicles. Every leaf page (specific car) will have a “locate a dealer” button to connect users to the organization. 2 Project Vision Analysis Goals and Problems The first step to developing our project vision was to highlight what Prof. Boiko considered to be the major problems and goals with the current CarMax website and combine that with our team analysis. Although we could influence some of these aspects to a great extent others would have to be taken in good faith. We couldn’t guarantee that the user will purchase the car but we definitely could reduce their confusion and help them decide before they get to the dealership therefore increasing their desire to purchase. Identifying Personas Our team was ambitious enough in our attempt to satisfy all the users so we chose our personas, identified their “wants” and highlighted their concerns. Carmax Goals • Help customers ﬁnd out what they want. • Help users walk-‐in to dealership. • Help inﬂuence walk-‐users to purchase. Problems • Customers Don't know what they want. • Drop-‐oﬀs (FrustraXon) Inﬂuences • Magazine Ads • TV Ads • Online Ads • Research (84% begin at Google) • Reviews • Word-‐to-‐Mouth (Freinds \Family) • Social Circles (Online) Personas Michelle • Unsure of what she wants • A car based on her style \personality • Needs help deciding Vince • Needs some guidance • A family man • A budget in mind • A car to ﬁt his lifestyle Roger • Knows what he wants • Businessman • Brand Loyalty • Not very tech savvy 3 Project Vision Reflection In our reflective process we had to find how to make it all successful. Our focus as a team was to eliminate the frustration and provide a helpful guidance to selecting the car before the go to the dealership. Achieving this will help the user decide what car he/she wants and the organization achieve its goal of selling the car at the dealership. We came a few fixes that should help fit all of these problems. Fixes CategorizaXon -‐ Mental Schemas NavigaXon -‐Search Simplicity -‐ LisXng Clueer 4 Heuristic Overview Executive summary We did our heuristic evaluation on CarMax, Auto-‐trader, and Craigslist. We chose Auto-‐trader because it was very similar to CarMax in design and aesthetics and has a large user base so we felt it would be good for a comparison. We chose Craigslist because it was a site that was completely different from CarMax, yet still had a large user base and met their needs. One of the main problems we ran into was deciding on what heuristic criteria to use. We got around this by searching the web for some ideas of what good criteria were as well as brainstorming to figure out the criteria we wanted to develop ourselves as well as which criteria we wanted to use off the web. The main result was that CarMax needs to do something different from its competitors to get ahead otherwise it will remain to be very similar to the other websites it is competing against. Methods 1. Chose CarMax, Auto-‐trader, and Craigslist to do a heuristic evaluation on. 2. Found some criteria on the web as well as developed some of our own for a total of 30 criterions. 3. Each of the four team members took one of the heuristic sections and did the test on all three of the sites. 4. Results were then collected and structured together into a cohesive heuristic evaluation. Results CarMax could improve by providing better results for diverse users. Roger who knows what he wants would prefer a search and plug method. Michelle who isn’t quite sure but has an idea could benefit from categorical divisions by car types. Vince requires a balance between not being sure what he wants and restrictive requirements of what are necessary. Maintaining database presentational form for skilled users was one of the competitor features that we wanted to maintain. We also wanted to include a powerful search that does not lead to dead-‐ends. From the evaluation we found the presentation of the information was database driven and schematic in display. 5 Heuristic Analysis Heuristic Rubric Our Heuristic Analysis began with developing a suitable rubric with 30 criteria which we divided into four major categories. Intuitive Information Schema 1. Labeling fits user vocabulary 2. Adequate relevance of car information 3. Tools fit user needs 4. Cues are present to guide user through their workflow 5. Car information presented is useful for all persona types 6. Thumbnail views provide adequate detail 7. Car selections provide more options if a user wants to browse similar vehicle Support User Goals 1. The navigation scheme and layout actively supports the user's goals (RAMP) 2. Adequate explanation is given for tasks that require it (RAMP) 3. All the information a user needs is available at each stage of a given workflow (RAMP) 4. There is a clear hierarchy in the primary calls to action (RAMP) 5. The search interface is located where you'd expect it to be (Louis Rosenfeld) 6. It is clear what was searched (Louis Rosenfeld) 7. Results are listed in a useful way (Louis Rosenfeld) Flexibility and Efficiency of Use 1. Landing page has a possible way to navigate to any part of the site (Ramp) 2. Site provides the appropriate informational goal (Ramp) 3. How well does the site deliver the informational goal? (Ramp) 4. Site has reasonable load times and search efficiency (Ramp) 5. Site supports mobile devices (Original) 6. Site supports print options when needed (Original) 7. Site provides tools when needed (Original) 8. How helpful are the tools provided? (Original) 9. Does the site provide helpful prompts? (Original) Aesthetics and Minimalist Design 1. Intuitive layout of content (Original) 2. Optimized use of content area (Original) 3. Professional appearance (Original) 4. Design consistency (constant theme throughout) 5. Main navigation easily identifiable 6. Ads and pop-‐ups are unobtrusive(usereffect.com) 7. Main Copy Is Concise & Explanatory (usereffect.com) 6 Tables We then explored the 3 sites applying our rubric and analyzed the CarMax selection tool. We placed our results in a table and analyzed the data. CarMax 4 3 2 1 n/a Intuitive Information Schema 1.1 Labeling fits user vocabulary 1.2 * Adequate relevance of car information 1.3 Tools fit user needs 1.4 Cues are present to guide user through their workflow 1.5 Car information presented is useful for all persona types 1.6 Thumbnail views provide adequate detail 1.7 Car selections provide more options if a user wants to browse similar vehicle Overall Score 2.9 uploads/Management/ paranoid-guide.pdf