In class the other day we had a great opportunity to have Jake Mitchell as our guest speaker! He is the principal product designer at CarMax and a super smart guy! I really enjoyed the different things he talked about like
User Persona
He talked about Tiffany, the user persona he helped create, and how it became so useful for their company. He said that even the higher up people would talk in terms of what Tiffany thought about something. Which to me shows that you've really created something useful that can help your business solve some of its problems centered around UX.
There was a little video about Tiffany which was great and it clearly described her and clearly talked through the problem she was facing. Which in this case was needing to buy a new car.
Jake talked about how a lot of people, including Tiffany, have anxiety around buying a used car. So, the CarMax goal is to make a compelling retail experience. The user persona video really put you in Tiffany's shoes and then you could start to think about ways to create a compelling retail experience.
So, it's all connected as it should be!
360
One of these compelling retail experience is the introduction of the 360 car interior view. This 360 view means that while you're online looking at cars you have the option to see the inside of the car. You basically are talking a virtual tour of the inside of the car so you can get a feel for the layout.
~Side note: I just bought a care at the end of the December but leading up to that I was looking at car after car all online. The thing that was a huge factor for me was seeing this 360 interior view. I am particular about how the dashboard of the car is set up and the 360 view gave me the best feel for it. So, the first thing I did with every car was look at the interior. It was super interesting in class when Jake showed the initial consumer feedback because those people loved it and I'm just sitting there thinking like yeah I loved it too!~
The other great thing about Jake talking about their 360 project is he kinda talked about the whole process. Where at first they didn't know if it would be valuable to the consumers but then with research they knew it would be valuable so next they tried to get it up and running as quickly as possible. They bought really low-tech stuff at Best Buy, which made the project feasible and went to work. Lastly, the put it on the website and A/B tested some stuff to make it usable and that was it! Jake said they have seen increased car buying that is directed form this 360 feature which shows it has good user experience and its an invaluable tool.
Outcome over Output
The last thing I want to talk about is this idea of outcome over output that Jake brought up. This means that you don't just consistently put out content just for the sake of looking like you put out a lot of content. You want to take time to develop something great that has a good outcome and is more useful. So taking an extra day to work on a project could make it turn out better. Giving yourself the time to process the project and think about the bigger picture can give you a better outcome! So, don't put out half-assed work cause that's not going to have a good outcome for you!!
Well, I want to give a huge thanks to Jake for speaking to our class! You are definitely a talented guy! I really enjoyed all the tidbits you gave and the advice/feedback you gave! Thanks!!