Hike One re-envisions how you buy your car online for PON

Finding the seamless user journey

Volkswagen dealer PON wanted to get ready for the future, in which the way cars are sold will change. They challenged us to redesign their website from a 'mobile first' perspective and create a uniform platform, whilst reflecting their different car brands. To get to this point, we started by getting to know the user first and mapping his specific user journey.

The customer's story visualised

How does a car buyer move through the process of purchasing a new car? There’s a difference between the way we think customers use a website and how they come to their final decision in reality. User journey sessions helped us visualise the bottlenecks and opportunities

Mobile first

Companies are starting to realise that these days, you need to design for smartphones first. For Volkswagen, we had to cut content to make the site scannable and provide a content-rich mobile experience. After perfecting the mobile site, we turned up the experience for bigger screens.

“Great team to work with. Very dedicated to create the best result together with all the other disciplines we work with. Always keeping the end-user in mind.”
Loes de Ruiter
Product owner at Volkswagen

Satisfying the four most common user needs

Sixty percent of visitors come to a website for just one of four tasks. That’s why each Volkswagen.nl visitor is immediately offered four common tasks to proceed. We quickly tested the top task assumption in the design sprint and modified the website accordingly.

Eliminating buyer’s remorse

Nobody wants to feel regret after buying a car. It should be fun, exciting and satisfying. It used to be difficult to understand all the extras that come with different, more expensive cars. We’ve managed to help everyone understand the options and compare the different variants.

Storytelling rather than product pushing

On the new Volkswagen.nl website, you can identify more naturally with the vehicle. Not every car clamours for your attention anymore: you can now listen to actual buyers and how they like their new car.

The paradox of choice

We’ve made it easier to choose and decide, as well as limiting the number of choices. Cutting down on the gazillions of options makes the user feel happy with his choice once again.

Service is the new marketing

After-sales is often forgotten but still an important part of the user journey. It’s the moment you can turn your clients into ambassadors of your brands and create loyalty. We started a separate design sprint for this project and came up with meaningful features. If a customer submits their vehicle registration number, they are provided with important information on maintenance in no time, as well as a price specification for their next service moment.

Thanks for the ride along

For the new Volkswagen.nl website, we worked with PON and digital powerhouse Valtech.

Creating a design system

Volkswagen.nl is component-based and built upon the principles of atomic design: it all starts with atoms that form into molecules, organisms, templates and finally pages. We created a pattern library so our designers could quickly design new templates and pages. Ultimately, there is ample freedom for the other brands in the Volkswagen portfolio to plug their own content in and come out with a totally different look.

“Working with a design system created a highly adaptable basis for websites of sister brands that would follow in the near future.”
Miguel Kooreman
Team Lead Visual Design