Audi
Somo Global
Design Director & Lead Designer
Design direction
UX/UI design
Interaction design
Workshops
Prototyping
User testing
A multiple award winning re-design and development of Audi UK’s adaptive, customer-first and game changing website. Bringing its online presence up to par with its reputation as a premium automotive manufacturer. We designed, developed and launched a truly user centric website that revolutionised Audi UK’s digital presence, removing language barriers as well as navigational ones to truely re-think what a automotive website should be.
Audi UK needed to make its digital experience as seamless as possible for its customer, while managing a complex technical environment, not to mention a different mobile and desktop experience I looked to unify. The aim was to change how people explore car models online and ensure that its digital presence truly reflected its reputation as a premium automotive brand.
We applied a customer-first, agile and iterative approach to the project. During the design and research stages we worked in secret, in a co-located, collaborative fashion with Audi UK to truly re-define and imagine its online presence. This approach allowed me to quickly establish the vision and facilitated faster feedback cycles with both customers and stakeholders.
It began with deep research, looking at the current user data for their site. We had workshops and even visted dealership to understand core pain points customers were facing, revealing insights to language barriers as well as browsability and information intake. After weekly iterations and testing we settled on an experience which is more akin to a sneaker site than a automotive one. The new site redefined how people explore car models online, leading the change in the automotive sector once we took the secret project into a Beta launch. A number of innovative features, including a new product exploration journey, device sensing and an inventive grid solution for the homepage led to vast improvements in positive customer feedback and a direct contribution to sales leads.
Our disruptive design approach allowed us to deliver in just 10 two-week sprints. Getting quotes and customers into a dealership is a major indicator of purchase intent – and a key KPI measure for Audi. Somo exceeded all targets, with the new website winning award after award in both the automotive sector and overall for best-in-class customer experience design. Based on the business results, the style and approach we created has been adapted within Audi in Germany and Audi of America with myself delivering talks to other agencies working in these regions. This then armed me to lead the way on Audi's global design system a year later (Teaser for another case study).
