Fins Car Wash
Website Redesign
June 2019 - August 2019
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
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Fins Customers
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AAA Members
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Potential AAA/Fins Customers
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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
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Website had different design language than mobile app
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Promotional imagery needed to be consistently sized with other media marketing material so it could be reused without increasing graphic design department workload
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Fins and AAA marketing managers needed to update promotional information and add events to the site independently without overriding source code
Solutions
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Reused social media images as event landing page thumbnails on home page
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Designed event landing pages so they could easily be edited and replicated by marketing managers
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Minimized AAA branding to increase Fins Car Wash brand independence
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Provided marketing managers with limited WordPress editing permissions for promotion updates and interactive map additions
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Included information on the newly released Fins Car Wash Loyalty App to drive downloads
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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
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Track page's CTA performance over 3 months
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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.
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.