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Fins Car Wash

Website Redesign

June 2019 - August 2019

Fins_Wash_Home_Hero.jpg

Project Overview

Challenge

Redesign FinsWash.com, aligning it with the Fins Car Wash Loyalty App using updated components from the organization's new design system.

Company

Fins Car Wash is a car wash chain created by AAA to complement their automotive offerings.

Users

  • Fins Customers

  • AAA Members

  • Potential AAA/Fins Customers

  • Internal Marketing Managers

Goals

Further Fin's independence and brand recognition while increasing site traffic by providing updated information on sustainability practices, events and promotions to customers

Blockers & Constraints

  • Website had different design language than mobile app

  • Promotional imagery needed to be consistently sized with other media marketing material so it could be reused without increasing graphic design department workload​

  • Fins and AAA marketing managers needed to update promotional information and add events to the site independently without overriding source code​

Solutions

  • Reused social media images as event landing page thumbnails on home page

  • Designed event landing pages so they could easily be edited and replicated by marketing managers​

  • Minimized AAA branding to increase Fins Car Wash brand independence​

  • Provided marketing managers with limited WordPress editing permissions for promotion updates and interactive map additions​

  • Included information on the newly released Fins Car Wash Loyalty App to drive downloads

  • Maximized the visual weight of all of the Call to Actions (CTA) on the home page by breaking content into distinct, themed sections.

 

What I'd Do Differently

  • Track page's CTA performance over 3 months

  • Conduct usability testing before high-fidelity wireframes, even if it meant finding testers within AAA who weren't as familiar with Fins

Key Skills Used

Responsive Web Design

User Interface Design

Competitive Analysis

Information Architecture

Artifact Creation

Development Handoff

Industries Served

Automotive Services

Car Wash Industry

Membership Services

Business to Consumer Sales

Tools Used

Adobe XD

Microsoft Office

Slack

Microsoft DevOps

Zeplin

Wrike

My Role & Team Composition

I was the sole designer for this project and collaborated with my UX manager and UX Copywriter to gather requirements from our Fins Car Wash Marketing Manager. I also did competitive research to evaluate what information was crucial to include

 

From there, I conducted an information architecture exercise with the team to map out the site's navigation. Once copy had been finalized, I was responsible for creating both low and high fidelity wireframes, which I then presented to the team for feedback and approval. I prepared all assets for development handoff and conducted a Design QA before the site launched publicly.

Team Members

UX Manager

UX Copywriter

Marketing Manager

Senior Web Developer

My Design Process
Continuous Discovery & Dual-Track Agile

The key to any good design is to collaborate early and often. Developing UX maturity within an organization requires building a bedrock of trust with your team members first.

 

By proactively leveraging the unique knowledge of each team member through design workshops and brainstorming sessions, the team can anticipate road blocks and course-correct early on instead of after a product has been built. I've found working this way can reduce implementation rework and strengthen team camaraderie as everyone feels their voice and perspective matters.

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Project Context
Site User Groups

For this project, I needed to consider company-based users as well as Fins and AAA customers for maximum solution impact.

Group 1

External Users

Since AAA and Fins Car Wash are technically separate brands, I needed to account for the level of knowledge a customer referred from AAA might have when compared to someone already familiar with Fins. Customers new to both brands would need more context in general.

Group 2

Internal Users

Additionally, since the site needed to be easily updated by the Fins Marketing Manager, the lead developer and I had to choose a CMS system to build the site with that allowed the manager to edit event and promotional content without touching the website's source code.

Information Architecture
FinsWash.com Site Map

I created a site map to organize content we wanted to include on the Fins website, simplifying wire-framing and improving navigation.
Fins-Wash-Home-Page-Site-Map.jpg

Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Fins Car Wash Home Page

Once structure and content were finalized, I began designing the basic layout of the page using grayscale shapes and placeholders in order to introduce new ideas to the team with minimal time used.
Fins_Wash_Home_Page_Wireframe.jpg

Final Design
Responsive & Modern

Implementing elements from the mobile app such as the distinct gradient, card style, and typographic style helped improve page hierarchy and accessibility.
Fins_Home_New.jpg

American Automobile Associations (AAA)

AAA Cares Landing Page Redesign

Transforming a landing page dedicated to the philanthropic works of AAA

AAACares_CTA_Image.png
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