HErtz Design Challenge

 
 

Roles: UX researcher / UI designer

 

The “Client”:

“Let Hertz put you in the driver's seat”

 
 

American car rental company established in 1918 and based in Florida.

Second largest car rental company in the U.S.

International locations in 150 countries around the world. 

To apply to IBM’s Design researcher positions, I was required to complete a design challenge over three days and present my findings to my future design team and managers through three interviews. 

 
 
 

The Problem statement:

Design a better way for a mid-career professional who occasionally travels for work to find just the right vehicle when using the Hertz mobile app.

 
 

Discovery/Define

Due to the contracted nature of the challenge, I created a condensed research plan that could give me the best landscape of information to make my design suggestions. 

User Survey

Survey outline: 

10 multiple choice questions (5 to 7 minutes) 

  • 2 questions on user experience with Hertz app (filter questions)

  • 3 questions on the user’s job, renting history, and other relevant demographics

  • 4 questions on user’s experience with other competitor car rental apps (use, satisfaction, drawbacks, expectations)

  • 1 question on if a user is interested in doing a user interview

Survey goal: 

Gather quantitative data on anticipated users and better refine the persona we want to design for.

Find users that best fit our problem statement and invite them for interviews to get qualitative data on their experience with the mobile application.

 
 
 

User Interview

After gathering and documenting responses, I would invite users that best fit our needs for user interviews. During this process, I would typically do at least 10 interviews to ensure the strength of the findings. The ideal user we are looking for is: 

  • Mid-career professional (35 yrs old - 50 yrs old)

  • Travels 10% to 20%of the time for work

  • Has used Hertz app in the past

  • Prefers to be in control of the entire rental process

  • Be able to make informed decisions about rental

Interview Outline

10 questions ( 30 to 45-minute interviews) 

  • 3 User task questions covering activities, goals for activities

  • 3 Open-ended questions on user’s experiences/ opinions/ attitudes

  • 4 User-task questions covering pain points and highlights of reserving a car on Hertz app and competitors

Interview Goals:

Gather qualitative data on users' experience with the Hertz mobile app and car rentals to gauge real users' experience.

To create personas to better direct design solutions to users' needs.

 
 

User App Review

To better understand the user experience, I looked up reviews on 3 different app review websites and highlighted themes relevant to our user type. 

App Review Goals:

Gather qualitative data on users’ experience with the Hertz mobile app and car rentals.

“Within an hour of making the online reservation, I get to the rental agency and am informed that the last car of that type was rented this morning.” - user review

Cons: 

  • What is available on the website isn’t always what is in stock at locations

  • Hours of operations differ for physical Hertz locations than what is listed in the app

  • Limited searching options

 

Competitive analysis 

I did a quick competitive analysis of Hertz top car rental app alternatives available to users. 

Competitive Analysis Goal

To understand the pros and cons of these direct competitors and how we can leverage areas of opportunity for our app improvements.

Pros: 

  • Wallet integration makes car rental quick and easy for repeat customers

  • Clear interface 

  • Helpful visualizations

 

Key Insights:

  • Loyalty programs generate mixed-to-poor results; there are more potent drivers of brand loyalty than programs.

  • Most members are happy with their membership.

  • In-store experiences over-burden new members and visitors.

  • Store traffic and layout frustrate routine members.

 

Design

With this research to guide my synthesis I pulled out these major problems to tackle during the Design phase of this project:

My goal at this time was to create high fidelity wireframe solutions to walk the IBM team through the to-be state for our users.

Problem 1:

The user wants more control over their car buying experience.

Problem 2:

Having to deal with sudden changes to orders when picking up their car.

Problem 3:

The user wants to know as much about the car they are renting before they rent.

Solution 1

Give users clear and robust filter features to ensure they see what they want.

 

Solution 2

Give car specifications for rental, along with mobile updates on condition and availability of rental.

 

Solution 3

Allow users to leave comments on the car experience through video and reviews.

 

Solution 4

Allow users to search by car type and multiple locations instead of just one to help them find what they want.

 
 
 
 

Next Steps

  • Additional user interviews to validate secondary findings and presented assumptions in the design brief

  • Low to High Fidelity mockups of solutions

  • User walk-through of solutions to check the validity

  • Handoff to Development Team to implement changes

  • Track results with real-time users and their experiences for future iterations

 
 

Thank you.