Sidekick

Background

Problem
Users going through the Purchase Process on desktop devices do not have digital files of documents they’re asked to upload. They need to use their phone’s camera to capture the documents and send themselves those files to continue.

Project Goals
Remove friction from upload docs steps. 
Reduce average time spent by users to complete the Purchase Process.
Continue to elevate the Purchase Process user experience. 
Reduce FAQs and CS support.

Client
Rivian (in-house)

My Role
Lead Product Designer (Strategy, UX, UI)

Team
Front-End Engineer
Back-End Engineers (2)
UI Designers (2)
Lead UX Researcher

Stakeholders
Associate Creative Director, UX Digital Design
Director, UX Digital Design
Senior Product Manager

Phase 01 Discover

First, I dive deeper into the problem to fully understand what we are solving for and how ciritical the problem is to the user and the business. Lastly, I conduct a competitive analysis to analyze competitive products and how we might make ours stronger.

Dive Deeper
After meeting with our analytics and research teams, we discovered over 70% of users going through the Purchase Process were using desktop devices – a figure we completely underestimated in the past. Additionally, around 37.5% of users were abandoning sessions at the upload documents step. This meant that the problem was more critical than initially understood.

Conduct a Competitive Analysis
Typically, I conduct a competitive anlysis and include the findings in my deck, however this project was unique. My competitive analysis came up short, and instead I turned to unique places to draw ideas and inspiration.

Phase 02 Define

I take the findings of the discovery phase and write a brief outlining the problem, audience, personas, project's goals and non-goals and the importance of the project. I also define the main messaging, feature highlights and how we might measure success. I use the brief as a roadmap for the next design phase and create a deck to show my findings and plan to stakeholders and team members.

In the define phase, I take the findings of the discovery phase and write a brief outlining the problem, audience, personas, project's goals and non-goals and the importance of the project. I also define the main messaging, feature highlights and how we might measure success. I use the creative brief as a roadmap for the next design phase and create a deck to showcase my findings and plan to stakeholders and team members.

Articulate My Approach
Equipped with a strong foundation and thoughtful ideas, I articulate my approach and get stakeholders on board. I share my plan, goals and vision.

Rapid User Mapping
I go broad by coming up with initial solutions to the problem. With rapid user mapping, I came up with three potential ideas.

Recommend a Direction
I gather stakeholders and recomend a direction – taking their feedback and advice into consideration for the next steps.

Brief in my Team
Once the discovery and define steps are complete, I brief in my team of designers, copywriters and engineers so we may begin to develop together.

Articulate My Approach
Equipped with a strong foundation and thoughtful ideas, I articulate my approach and get stakeholders onboard. I share my plan, goals and vision.

Recommend a Direction
I gather stakeholders and recomend a direction – taking their feedback and advice into consideration for the next steps.

Brief in my Team
Once the discovery and define steps are complete, I brief in my team of designers, copywriters and engineers so we may begin to develop together.

Phase 03 Develop

After earning a greenlight from stakeholders and briefing my team, I develop my ideas. I begin with rapid, low-fidelity designs to express the UX intent and functionality. I may discover edge cases to account for. Once I have a solid foundation, I move on to high-fidelity designs which is where I begin to work with UI and system designers more heavily.

After earning a greenlight from stakeholders and briefing my team, I develop my ideas. I begin with rapid, low-fidelity designs to express the UX intent and functionality. I may discover edge cases to account for. Once I have a solid foundation, I move on to high-fidelitydesigns which is where I begin to work with UI and system designers more heavily.

UX as a Foundation
Focusing on the core of the solution, I begin with low-fidelity designs – these serve as a roadmap for what to design for the next step: visual designs.

Wide Visual Explorations
Working with visual designers, we set up multiple sessions to work independently and come together to share visual concepts and collaborate on UI explorations. My approach is to go wide with explorations and then come together to refine.

Understand and Incorporate Partner Feedback
While working with system designers, copywriters and engineers, we may discover constraints for the project. In this case, we found legal and technical constraints we had to consider when designing the final product.

UX as a Foundation
Focusing on the core of the solution, I begin with low-fidelity designs – these work as a roadmap for what to design for the next step: visual designs.

Wide Visual Explorations
Working with visual designers, we set up multiple sessions to work independently and come together to share visual concepts and collaborate on UI explorations. My approach is to go wide with explorations and then come together to refine.

Understand and Incorporate Partner Feedback
While working with system designers, copywriters and engineers we may discover constraints for the project. In this case, we found some legal and technical constraints we had to consider when designing the final product.

Phase 04 Deliver

By this step, the project design is nearly complete and we focus on the UI details. We deliver all our designs with clear flows and annotations and get final approval by our stakeholders.

Details, Details, Details
The strategy, research and ux are all done and we've aligned on a visual direction. It's time fo hyper-focus on the details such as typography, iconography, color and other UI elements.

Finish Strong
I present the final design in a prototype and flow form to the stakeholders and engineers. I make sure to label flows and annotate where necessary as to avoid future confusion. After hand-off, I am available for ongoing support.

Phase 05 Test & Improve

While we wait for implementation to be complete, we have been conducting moderated testing with as a "whitelabel" brand.

User criteria:
Living in the United States
Age 25-65+
Looking to buy a new vehicle within the next 6 months
100,000+ household income
Tech literate of all ranges

NPS Score Results
The results of our monitored testing using non-customers were great! Ultimately, we got an NPS score of 88 with 12 users. Every single user knew how to scan a QR code and said that the interface was simple and easy to use. 10 our of the 12 customers used phrases like "delightful" "super easy" "easy enough" and "this is awesome."

Of room for improvement, 4 of our customers had other EVs with an app as their key (likely Teslas) and suggested the Purchase Process or Sidekick should be accessible as a "document hub" within the mobile app.

Next Steps: Re-peat phase 05 with real customers

Our engineers are currently working on the implementation, so we've not yet been able to test the product with real customers going through the Purchase Process. However, we have the whitelabel testing results and we have a plan in place to monitor its usage and metrics so we may improve a version two.

Questions for User Testing
Are users using Sidekick?
Do users understand what Sidekick is?
Has the abandon rate decreased? By how much?
Has the average time spent going through the Purchase Process changed? If so, by how much?
What are users' impressions of Sidekick?
What would the user improve?
Where else may users expect to find Sidekick?