Dutton One

2024

UX/UI Design

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Overview

During my internship at Dutton One, I was assigned the responsibility of redesigning their main website, applying the skills and knowledge gained from my UX/UI studies. This major project involved analysing user feedback, conducting competitive research to identify industry best practices, and designing a solution to address the issues identified with the existing website.

Aims

Address ongoing issues plaguing users from using the website to its full potential.
Focus on the mobile side of the design as this was the primary % of users.
Re-design the filter system that allows users more options when filtering for cars.
Follow best-in-class solutions of other automotive websites, and incorporate in to website.

Background

The Client

Dutton One is one of Australia's leading car-resellers, boasting massive growth since it commenced operations in 2017, with 17 dealerships Australia wide. Striving to provide Australians with a range of pre-owned prestige cars. They are also a co-major partner of the Essendon Football Club.

The Scope

I was brought in to address some of the issues that the website had been facing since they first launched it. These major project items included:

Improving filter functionality
Above the fold design and look/feel of the Homepage
Mobile responsiveness across Homepage, Vehicle search page and Details page.

Constraints

As this was a 12 week internship program I was limited by some factors:

Only 2 days a week at the workplace.
Working with a development team based overseas (some language barrier).
Worked as a solo UX/UI designer, limited to a single workflow.
Work to the style guide already established.

Research

The first stage of this re-design was to research other best-in-class websites in order to gain an idea of what is best for creating the most efficient and effective design of an automotive website. These websites included carsales.com.au, cars24.com.au, redbook.com.au etc.

Previous feedback had been given on the website by marketing experts who provided valuable insight in to how the website can be improved, which was helpful to apply these experts views in to the new design of the website.

Ideation

Due to the fast-paced nature of these big companies, they wanted me to get almost straight in to re-designing the website. Therefore ideation was kept fairly short as Dutton did not want me to re-invent the wheel, but come up with a design that other websites do well, and match it with the style of the the Dutton One website, not directly copying, but gaining lots of inspiration from them.

Feedback

Whilst working on the re-design, I had chances to conduct meetings with heads of departments (Chief Technology Officer and Chief Marketing Officer) and receive feedback from them to further implement their thoughts in to the website. Working with these heads gave me valuable experience in conducting meetings and giving me a platform to express my ideas.

Final Design

The final design was completed a couple weeks before the end of my internship, which was received well by heads of departments and improved on the areas which had plagued the companies website previously.

Development

Although the final design was complete, I was required to document all the changes that would be passed on to the development team based in Sri Lanka. I created a 6,000+ word document which showed all the appropriate changes and how to exactly conduct these changes. This was how our development team worked and required this kind of documentation.

There were some challenges in this process as through meetings with this development team, some of my designs were not recreated to my liking, so I was required to address these issues and report back to the development team.

Unfortunately, my internship had concluded before the website had been fully developed, so I was unable to provide critical feedback on some of the work developed, therefore there are some issues with the website, that I feel I would have addressed, had I more time.

Reflection

Overall, my journey through Dutton One was great and enjoyed working as an Intern for the company. I was happy with my re-design of the website as were other colleagues. As stated before, I had left before I got to see the full development and launch of the website, which is disappointing but this was a known constraint coming in.

I learned a lot from my time at Dutton, not only from a design perspective, but has an employee in a big business. Collaboration is very important and something I discovered I thrive in. From a design perspective, I became more and more comfortable with my design decisions and became especially familiar with figma, gaining a lot of experience using it.

Testimonials

Ben Talbot (Chief Marketing Officer)

Cam - appreciate your efforts especially the D1 website re-design. Can't wait to see the significantly better UI/UX. Our business is sure to enjoy the benefits moving fwd

Marcus George (Head of Marketing)

Thank you for your exceptional work Cam Robertson. Your creativity and dedication have greatly contributed to our team & brands. Your positive attitude and eagerness to learn has been a pleasure to witness.