Robert Sheppard Design

CarGuide for AddClarity

robshepp — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 16:44:06 +0000

Proposition
CarGuide is a start-up that exists to help and guide all used car buyers. It gathers vital information about the used car(s) you are considering and presents that back to you along with an assessment of the vehicle and key questions you should ask when going to view it. This takes the usual vehicle check concept to another level by offering bespoke advice in a non-technical way to all car buyers.

My Role
I led the design of the brand identity, user experience and final visual design. Collaborating with the co-founders and working alongside a remote team of developers. As part of the process, I took the team through the Lean UX methodology…

Discover:

Firstly, I ran an ideation workshop to help stakeholders define the overall value proposition for CarGuide.

A huge amount of data can be gathered for each vehicle, but what is actually valuable to the user? By encouraging the business to bring users to life with personas, we can understand (or at least make some assumptions) around their motivations. That helped us to decide how much (and what) data to display to both petrolheads and less experienced used car buyers.

We collaborated remotely on card sort sessions to define the MVP. By creating user stories, we could reference the personas to validate that the MVP functionality met all of their needs. We also set the business needs alongside these.

Define:

Userflows
I started the define stage by generating userflows to describe and optimise the paths taken for users to perform the key tasks within the site: Add a vehicle / Compare saved vehicles / Buy credits / Buy a report.

Userflows allowed us to focus on the users experience and not the design details on the screen. A flow should show the number of decisions required to perform a certain task. It therefore shows us where we can optimise the journey and reduce friction for the user.

Interactive wireframes.
Next, I created interactive wireframes, to better understand the userflows and to start to bring the solution to life. These are extrememly useful for early user testing and A/B testing of key pages (mobile-first).

Live test in order to gain feedback on:
• The overall proposition
• Value (cost per report)
• Usability and intuitiveness
• Tone of voice

Design:

Brand Identity.
I designed a brand identity that gives CarGuide a personality to fit with their brand values:
“A friendly guide helping motorists every step during the used car buying cycle, helping them to make the right decision, avoiding unnecessary trips to view dodgy cars”.

The smiley ‘saintly’ car logo was created to give CarGuide a device which can be used on social media channels and throughout the website as a visual guide.

The initial launch website introduced users to the CarGuide proposition and brand for the first time. It was important that we had clear messaging and brand guidelines to follow, so that their first impressions would be positive.

Visual Design
With the style now set in place, I could design the functional pages that were created during the ‘define’ stage. I adopted a mobile-first approach to design as we had identified this would be the main use case for CarGuide.

Together, we explored UX solutions for the detailed report pages and key functionality such as ‘Compare favourites’ ‘Buy Credits’ and the ‘Buy Report’ journey.

Design system
To enable CarGuide to iterate and introduce new features, each of the elements are archived into a library or design system. This system is an important tool to ensure that the established design is maintained, going forward. By creating the design system in Sketch, developers can access and inspect all the elements using Zeplin.

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Direct Line for Business

robshepp — Fri, 14 Dec 2018 16:35:00 +0000

Problem
Direct Line for business did not have an online quote and buy journey. It was deemed too complicated due to all of the variables each business could have. This meant each quote had to be handled manually which was time consuming, costly and not a good experience for potential customers.

My role
Lead and project manage the design and dev team at buffalozoomedia. Act as lead UX designer within the team and report directly to the stakeholders at Direct Line. Manage handover of assets and front-end code to DL’s technology partner. Plan and implement future phases of incremental updates. I followed this process so that the entire project team understood what we were trying to achieve at each stage:

Discover:

I collaborated with Direct Line staff to review the problem and advise on how to optimise the journeys.

What became clear was that the insurance products needed to be tailored to individual, specific businesses. For instance, a hairdresser might have several locations, all of which could be different types of building. Thy might also have a mixture of permanent and part-time staff, stock in the form of products and maybe a vehicle to include. Roll that out for multiple types of business and it soon becomes very complex.

The goal was to keep the application process to 20 minutes. This was to minimise the amount of abandoned applications.

As this was a first for the business insurance team, we only had historical speech analytics data to go from. We used these real life scenarios to understand the pain points and also to highlight areas where compliance had to be adhered to. We discovered that although the existing offline phone application wasn’t ideal, it had a conversational quality to it which helped to optimise the journey. By replicating this and asking pertinent questions up front (in the form of a pre-questionnaire) we realised we could then make the application journey itself more bespoke and therefore more relevant and quicker for each individual.

Define:

From the initial discover phase, DL staff compiled the question sets for each business scenario in excel spreadsheets. We decided to concentrate on a beauty businesses scenario, for the MVP roll out and user tests. We started with the application pre-questionnaire, which we wanted to make as intuitive and speedy as possible.

In my role as lead UX designer I created a simple interface that adds insurance products to the users basket as they answer the pre-questionnaire. This is a transparent user-centred process that tells the customer exactly what products they will be offered as part of their quote. It also means that the remaining quote and buy journey is now shorter as it’s personalised to that users needs. They will not see any questions that do not relate to their individual quote. From Direct Line’s point of view, it also means the quote will be more accurate and, therefore, more competitive.

Design:

Direct Line already had a distinctive, mobile-first style in place for their forms. However, as we had created a new journey we needed to design new components whilst staying true to this style. It was my responsibility to make sure that not only the agreed solution was carried forward, but that the designers understood and respected Direct Line’s style. At the same time I wanted to give designers and developers enough freedom to discover and suggest additional solutions that would further improve the experience.

Both design and development had to be done to meet AAA accessibility standards. The dev team, in particular, worked very hard to achieve that whilst also understanding the needs of the technology supplier responsible for the back-end and integration.

The design and dev team that I managed got involved in regular presentations to the stakeholders and partners. Where problems arose, we worked very quickly to come up with a solution that would not interfere with the experience.

Styleguide
During the design phase I developed a styleguide which was accessible and valuable to all members of the team. This ensures consistency in the look and feel is maintained, as the product is developed and iterated.

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Anthropos Brand Identity

robshepp — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 11:22:28 +0000

Anthropos is a startup company, with a unique proposition. With the use of discreet technology, they can enable elderly people, living with long-term health problems to stay in their own homes for longer. Anthropos is the first SaaS connected health platform that allows care providers to exploit the capabilities of smart technology.

I was asked to design the brand identity. It had to be contemporary, but not techie as the target markets are care providers and family members. The ‘A’ logo was inspired by Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man, which describes human proportion and symmetry.

As part of the brand identity roll out, I also designed the launch website, iconography, printed stationery and brochureware, PowerPoint templates for the sales team and exhibition graphics for the launch. An easy to follow brand guidelines ensures that the look and feel stays consistent and on message.

An app is also in development and I’ve been involved with fast prototyping and UI design for the demo.

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Building The Office Space Of Tomorrow

robshepp — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 09:31:05 +0000

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Stunning Photos Of Some Of The Best Designed Cities

robshepp — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 09:30:09 +0000

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Interview With Lars Levine, CEO Of DigiArch

robshepp — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 09:29:01 +0000

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Benny Parker

robshepp — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 09:27:34 +0000

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Concepts Of The Future

robshepp — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 09:26:42 +0000

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Top 10 Tips To Boost Your Creativity

robshepp — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 09:25:26 +0000

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Responsive Design For A New Generation

robshepp — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:23:59 +0000

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