Helping Car dealers expand their customer base
I worked on a part-time project during my master's degree. The main goal was to create a web-based dashboard for the founders' idea.
The problem
MyAir.io is a small new business in Vigevano, Italy.
They used to sell car insurance but now want to sell a technology-based service. They partnered with a French company that makes devices that collect data from any vehicle. MyAir.io decided to sell these devices along with a digital service to car dealerships in northern Italy. They wanted to help the dealerships expand their customer base using this device and service.
“I want to provide software solutions driven by the data collection device to some of my Father’s business connections.”
- Igor Valandro, CEO MyAir.to
“I want to modernise the vehicular tech industry in Italy & this could be a small step.”
- Antonio Antonacci, CPO MyAir.to
Solution in short
A web app for car dealerships that shows data from physical devices, helping predict car health and allowing dealers to contact owners for repairs.
This sped up customer outreach.
Impact
2x
Delivered 2x B2B dashboards that helped the team launch themselves as a software solution company
30%
Increased fleet monitoring rate
65%
Customer acquisition efficiency for car dealerships
40%
Faster delivery of features by introducing product development process
Initial discovery
1. Understanding the customers & the business
2. Lack of Design maturity and Product mindset
I began by understanding the business and its processes through in-depth discussions with the founders. Next, I observed and interacted with car dealers, shadowing them and asking questions when possible.
After a week of discussions with car dealership stakeholders in Northern Italy, I learned that most of their revenue comes from servicing the cars they sell. This was confirmed by both the founders and the stakeholders.
This led to a simple process of developing wireframes with their business requirement and my experience as a designer and then taking the designs out for a test with the car dealers who have agreed to be the first beta users.
Delivery by rapid prototyping
1. Ideating on displaying vehicle data & quick validation
A daily exercise where I would sketch out wireframes such as the one below based on ideation with the leadership, then take it for a quick feedback with future customers.
The startup didn't have the necessary resources for developing products and using a design approach. As a UX consultant, my given task was to create wireframes and demonstrate the potential of the solution the founders wanted.
2. Evolution of the Vehicle data analytics UX
The analytics were divided into 4 states of health. Each state displayed the number of vehicles.
The states were updated with various ideas such as displaying how much money the dealership would earn if they treated the vehicles in their garage in each state.
3. Continuous iteration & feedback collection
With each iteration, several ideas were developed such as showing forecasts of possible maintenance. Each version was user tested by talking to dealership stakeholders.
After a few weeks of iterations and user testing, the final draft started taking shape. The brand colours were added to the wireframes.
During iterations, a user feedback led to the introduction of the map view as the device could also share GPS location of the vehicle based on the consent shared by the customer with the car dealership once they purchased the vehicle.
4. final version delivered to the customers after a UI facelift in accordance with the branding.
Bonus: Website design and Print design
Being the only designer, I was also in charge of doing the web design for their ecosystem. I came up with several options before settling into one.
Printed catalogues designed by me were used as marketing collateral for the company to use during tech conferences and industrial fairs.
Key learnings
Using rapid prototyping as a way to build a product and get it to the market.
Working with stakeholders who non existent product mindset.
Learning the Italian language as all my team members spoke very basic English.
Translating Product & UX processes into Italian
