Accountable for the UX effort to design end-to-end shopping experience for Volkswagen ID.4, its first all-electric SUV, in the United States, resulting in selling 2,000 vehicles within 8 hours after the launch. Improved the user journey and visual design while shifting from traditional car buying experience to all digital.

When VW...went electric

Volkswagen had an ambitious goal of getting 22 million electric vehicles on the road within the next 10 years, starting with its ID.4 Electric SUV. They came to us with this ambitious vision to make the launch of its ID.4 to be as grand as possible. Yes, it was before the pandemic hit.

They asked us to help them market the next most important VW car ever without any traditional marketing campaigns: no TV ads, no auto shows, no launch events, no dealership activations. And at that time, they hadn't built the car yet.

Role

Our team had to solve this enormous problem through creative approach, without any real car. Our creative team worked so hard to create an impressive marketing soundings including cool photoshoots to engage customers, using only CGI and photoshoot lighting technique to turn the clay model to look like the real one.

As a Lead UX Designer on the team, I had to think about how to create the first end-to-end all digital shopping experience for all Volkswagen vehicles. My responsibility was to convert the audiences from CRM, paid media, and social media channels to the high value actions: engaged them to buy the new electric vehicles.

I worked closely with the Creative Team, Project Managers, Strategist, Content Strategist, Designer, Copywriters, Engineers, and the Client to improve the car shopping experience journey. From educating the customers about owning an electric vehicle, to encourage them to make a switch to electric.

User studies

Without much information about the actual car and limited timeline, it was very difficult for me to conduct a user research. The client wanted to move quickly with the assumption we didn't need to do any user research. However, I consulted with the Product Design Director, and she suggested to look at the previous research and do a quick user research if possible.

To be able to make further data-informed design decision, I looked at the previous research that we conducted to see the overall shopping journey experience, from the pain points of the user flow to the vehicle product pages. I also reached out to the third party agency that conducted website data analytics and survey. All this data informed me about how the users behavior when researching a vehicle online and what mattered to them.

Shopping flow

The first thing that I noticed in order to drive the users to the purchasing funnel was that the shopping flow should be as simple as possible. It should be very straightforward and easy to navigate. So, the users could spend more time educating themselves with electric vehicles information and the ID.4 electric SUV rather than navigating the website. The information architecture should be very clear with the prominent call to actions mostly on the top of the pages:

Virtual showroom

Since there was no traditional campaigns or dealership activations, the virtual showroom was the most critical page to tell the story of VW most important electric car. It wasn't just a place to tell the customers about the car, but also a place to educate them on switching to electric.

Below is some iterations of the wireframes.

I worked closely with the Content Strategist to ensure that the page told a compelling story that achieved the users' goals and aligned with the brand story. The Creative Team then came in to polish the story with impressive visuals.

Electric vehicles quiz

We created an electric vehicle compatibility quiz to engage customers to learn more about electric vehicles and encourage them to make a switch to electric. I created the flow and logic of the quiz, so that it's quick and simple also useful for the users to see if electric vehicle fit their needs. The quiz should only took about 2-3 minutes with only essential questions relating electric such as commute routine, gas mileage, and customers' location because they wouldn't spend a lot of time interacting with overwhelming questions. A the end of the quiz, we were able to inform the customers whether they were ready to go electric and how could we help them to switch to electric.

Electric vehicles tools

In order to educate the customers about going electric, we believed that we had to help them from their perspectives. It wasn't just about throwing information from the brand's perspectives, but to truly understand their needs when it came to using the car on their daily commute. That's why we created the electric vehicles tools to help them understand if electric cars could help them save.

I worked along side the Copywriter to best tell the story how the customers could potentially make benefits from electric cars.

Reservation

We created the first ever VW online reservation portal to help customers order the vehicle without visiting the local dealerships. We built a brand-new configuration and reservation tool that made car online buying easier and more seamless.

One of the first things I noticed with vehicle online configuration and reservation was the journey was complicated and it took so many steps to be able to order the car. That's why we created a one-step configuration to make the process easier. Customers could simply configure their car in a single configuration tool and move forward with the reservation.

For the first iteration, I referenced the design to the old builder tool since users were already familiar with it and made the design cleaner and simplify the steps.

After I tested the design, many users felt the steps were overwhelming and the navigation wasn't effective. So, I placed the configuration on the right side and used accordions to avoid overwhelming users with too much information.

The second iteration received more positive feedback. However, users weren't aware of the accordions and felt the reserve button was too intimidating. They also didn't recognize the price and they needed to see more images upfront.

For the last iteration, I removed the accordions and put the information upfront, so users could really read everything before they made big decision to reserve the car. I also placed the price details to be on top of the page to make it more prominent, and put more images upfront to help users visualize the car.

We also custom engineered the reservation portal to enhance the customers' excitement while waiting for their vehicle. Customers could track their reservation progress from getting reservation confirmation until the car was ready to be delivered.

The impacts

We successfully launched the ID.4 Electric SUV for the first time in the United States. It was a roller-coaster ride, but we were able to help VW shifted its vehicle shopping experience to be all through digital as the foundation of its future vehicles.

Sold out 2,000 vehicles in

8 hours

Dealerships received reservation

500+

Organic search traffic

+35%

Impressions on social channels

1.5 billion