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Self-inspection of rental 

cars

Role: Researcher, UX and visual designer
Duration: 4 Weeks

OVERVIEW

Inspections of rental cars before and after customer trips are crucial to identify damages and prevent disputes. Unfortunately, rental agency workers frequently miss or fail to record damages, resulting in data mismanagement and disputes. To facilitate contactless renting, customers are now required to perform self-inspections and capture images of the vehicle's condition using their mobile. This user flow is designed for customers to inspect the exterior and interior of the car.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Working adults who rent cars

METHODS USED

Secondary research, Interviews, Competitive Analysis, User Journey Map, Paper Prototyping, Heuristic Evaluation

STARTING OFF WITH RESEARCH

Understanding the car rental system

I started off by understanding how a car rental system works. This helped me to design the user flow in accordance with the system.  A car rental agency always manually inspects the cars prior to and after a ride, my task was to make a user carry out the inspection by themselves.

Meet the users

I focused on the users within the age group of 18 and 18+, mainly working adults. As I was given a short span of time, I reached people who drive rental cars and asked about the idea of carrying a self-inspection of the car. I noticed that almost all of the users feel that the inspection would be a long process and this cannot be done in haste.

Persona 1
Persona 2

User journey map

A user journey map allowed me to vividly envision the precise scenario that a user experiences, by putting myself in their shoes.

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Problem statement

Amisha, a time-pressed working adult who frequently rents cars, requires a fast and efficient contactless self-inspection process because the car agency relies on self-inspection without the presence of workers.

COMING UP WITH IDEAS

I started designing the user flow by keeping the major pain points of the users in mind. I really wanted a quick way to finish the self-inspection with less effort. I ideated upon a few user flows and decided on the one which could make the process run fast and fluently.

I wanted the process to be quick, efficient, and short. Upon ideating and researching, I came up with a 3-step solution in which the first step includes car identification, the second step is to record the video of the car and the third is to report any kind of internal or external damage.

Brainstorming flows

Brainstorming user flows

Goal statement

Our self-inspection flow will let users independently assess a car before and after a ride which will help the users who are in a hurry by providing a 3-step easy and quick inspection process.

Crafted a streamlined three-step solution to empower customers to self-inspect rental cars effortlessly before and after their journey.

The focus of this user flow is on inspecting the exterior and interior of the vehicle, while leaving the mechanical inspection in the capable hands of the rental agency, given its specialized expertise.

The goal is to ensure a swift and efficient process for users to assess and report the condition of the car.

3 steps

DESIGNING THE SOLUTION

Next up, designed digital wireframes and prototypes. 

User flow and mockups

Scanner to scan QR codes available on wind shields of the car.
This will help identify the car.

360° video recording.
Detecting car dents or any damage.

End of the flow.

A guide to move and capture car's different view at the time of recording.

Damage reporting.
In case of any damage, a separate image and brief about the harm will be asked.

On-boarding screens.

EVALUATION

Heuristic Evaluation

I performed a heuristic evaluation to address deficiencies in the interface.

Outcome

Error Prevention: The system currently lacks a summary of user-added damages and fails to offer a confirmation step before submitting the report.
This issue could be resolved by presenting users with a concise summary of their recorded report and requesting confirmation prior to submission.

NEXT STEPS

  • Evaluate this flow with end users. 

  • Assessing the feasibility of implementing an automatic damage detection system during the recording process.

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