National Vehicle Condition Report
We designed a way for customers to access and understand their vehicle’s condition throughout their rental journey.
Company: National Car Rental
Project Duration: 4 months
Team: 3 UX Designers, 1 Product Manager
My Role: UX Designer
P R O J E C T O V E R V I E W
Problem
How can we prevent damage claim disputes between customers and the rental car company?
Outcome
We designed a vehicle condition report that improves the accuracy and transparency of damage documentation for rental cars.
S O L U T I O N P R E V I E W
Vehicle Condition Report
View your rental vehicle’s condition report at any point of your journey, so you can be clear about existing damage on your rental car.
Both customers and the rental car company are clear about the car’s pre-rental condition, so there will be less disputes over new damage claims.
P R O B L E M C O N T E X T
Problem
In a span of 6 months, National Car Rental faced 647 vehicle damage claim disputes.
Customers were accusing the company of charging them for existing damage on their rental cars.
Customer Complaints
“The employee told me to not worry about the scratch when I picked up the car; now I’m being blamed for it upon return.”
“Why do I have to prove this damage was pre-existing with my own photos? You guys should own that responsibility.”
“There were no employees around, so no one took me on a walkaround to see what was on the car before I left with it.”
P R O B L E M C O N T E X T
Why couldn’t National and its customers agree on what was new vs existing damage on a vehicle?
To understand, we just need to look at the existing vehicle condition report.
The vehicle condition report provides inadequate and confusing documentation of the car’s pre-existing condition.
But unless customers took their own photos and videos of the car before leaving the rental car lot, this PDF became the official record when disputes arose.
Issues with the Report:
No photos or descriptions of damage placement
Confusing formatting
Not upfront about what constitutes new damage (e.g. will I get charged if there’s a tiny new scratch on the car?)
Easy to miss - tacked onto small section of the rental agreement, which people don’t always read.
H O W M I G H T W E . . .
How might we redesign the vehicle condition report to prevent confusion and disputes over a car’s pre-rental condition?
D E F I N I N G S U C C E S S
Design Objectives
Design a new Vehicle Condition Report that is:
More detailed but easier to read and understand
User Flow
The solution would entail creating 2 new experiences + redesigning 3 existing experiences.
More convenient to find and access
Clearer about what new damages would result in a charge
Constraints
Need to use general car schematics
Can indicate where damage is but customer cannot click.
Employees can upload photos but not customers
Must mention and differentiate between Damage vs. Wear and Tear
Research and Testing
5 rounds of testing including heat mapping, usability testing, and a/b testing.
D E S I G N P R O C E S S
Double Diamond Method
Define
Design Question
Success Metrics
Target Users
Discover
Understand problem and product context
Assess competitors & industry standards
Develop
Design Priorities
Interaction Flow
User Tasks
Deliver
Hi-fidelity Prototypes to product team for feedback
0 3 | D E V E L O P
Design Phase
Design Criteria
While this was a pie-in-the-sky project, we developed feature priorities for ourselves to keep our ideation focused and feasible.
1. CTV Design
We designed for TV first because TV is the hardest to design for compared to other streaming devices. It would be easier to scale our design down for mobile, tablet, and desktop in the future instead of vice versa.
2. In-line trailers
Able to watch trailers directly on the “For You” page, where the trailer rail is located.
3. Integrated Experience
Our design should naturally integrate into the existing D+ experience, where most content is housed in rails.
4. Key Metadata
Along with show title and show art, display premiere date and the network icon.
5. Closed Captioning
Design must be able to accommodate subtitles.
Interaction Flow
1. As a current D+ subscriber, I want to easily watch trailers for upcoming content so I can anticipate new offerings.
2. If I like a show, I want to add it to My List and get notifications so I can watch it as soon as it’s available.”
User Goals
User Tasks
Users need to complete the following:
View trailers
Add to my list
Turn on notifications
The issues with “Add to My List” and “Turn on Notifications”
Awareness
Since these are new features for users on the For You page, how do we make users aware of these additional features?
Real Estate
Displaying permanent action icons near each trailer looked ugly and took up prime real estate. Would not be scalable for smaller devices
Interactions
We need to minimize the # of interactions because remote controls are relatively unwieldy.
Solution
After much experimentation, we decided to utilize a tooltip and overlay menu to solve this issue.
01 | Tool tip with “Press and Hold for options” appears in bottom upon initial focus, directing users to click on their remote.
02 | After clicking on the button on their remote, the user sees an overlay with options such as Add to My List and Notify Me.
03 | A toast appears at the top to provide confirmation once users complete an action on this list.
04 | Users will see the same action options if they bypass the tooltip and click directly into a specific show page, like the one above.
04 | D E L I V E R
Hi-fidelity Prototypes
Final Rail Designs
Design 1: Trailer in Hero with Small Cards
Overview
Trailer: Begins playing in top right hero after user focuses on a show card for 3 seconds.
Show cards: Standard small size. Premiere date appears upon focus.
Metadata: Displayed in top hero next to trailer.
Design 2: Expanding Cards
Overview
Trailer: Begins playing after card has expanded.
Show cards: Cards grow and shrink simultaneously to reduce nausea.
Metadata: Premiere date is permanently displayed. The rest show up when a tile expands.
Design 3: Wide 16x9 Cards
Overview
Trailer: Begins playing inside of the show cards after user focuses.
Show cards: Large cards that take up a lot of real estate.
Metadata: Premiere date is permanently displayed. The rest show up when a trailer plays.
Comparing the Designs
Design #1: Small Cards
Pros
Smaller, vertical cards in the rail display greatest amount of content simultaneously
Trailer playing in the large hero is visible and matches the current D+ experience the best
Cons
Users who want to browse though the Coming Soon rail quickly may prefer relevant metadata to be housed in the content cards
Users may forget premiere dates as they browse because the premiere date badge only appears upon focus
The Trailer Rail looks similar to D+’s current content rails so users might be confused
Design #2: Expanding Cards
Pros
Expandable cards save on static real estate without impeding the trailer viewing experience
The way the cards perform and reveal more metadata simulates a theater watching experience
Cons
Dwell interaction may be annoying and distracting to some users
This Interaction is very different from how the rest of the D+ system’s cards perform
Design #3: Wide Cards
Pros
The coming soon rail will be eye-catching compared to other rails on the page, which may increase engagement
Trailer playing inside the cards aligns with competitors and may match user’s mental model the most
Cons
In order to align with the current platform experience, the static cards take up a lot of real estate without presenting much metadata
Large cards may feel annoying and clunky to browse through for users who want to browse quickly
Final Recommendation
We ultimately recommended Design #3 to the Product Team because it had the best balance of usability and aesthetics out of our three final designs.
However, we still decided it would be best to test all three prototypes with users to get additional feedback.
H A N D O F F
Next Steps
We got positive feedback on our designs, but there are still open questions as testing to be done. I anticipate these will be the next steps for our prototypes.
Research
Trailer experiences for customers (UX/R)
How customers are interacting with trailer rail on other platforms (UX/R)
Analyze HBO Max Coming Soon Page & discuss with PMs who have worked on it
Testing
UI/Design Refinements
Rail Position
Usability Testing
Open Questions
Accessibility
Engineering Capabilities
Personalization of Coming Soon content
More Projects
Discovery+ Trailer Rail
HumanKind
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