British Car Auctions came to us to design, develop, and launch their first-ever B2C digital venture. The goal was clear: they wanted to make car buying easier.
There was a visible gap in the market, with other traditional sites filled with over-complicated technical language and figures causing user frustration. Non petrol heads needed a trustworthy way to purchase the vehicle of their dreams. It was time to do things better. ‘Cinch’ was the answer.
I led the UI design effort, prototype creation, and collaborated closely with UX designers and the development team. Additionally, I established the foundation of the design system and facilitated communication with client stakeholders.
To realise BCAs vision of a user-friendly, market-leading car-buying platform, the challenge lay in creating a completely new digital business. From initial product conception to brand language, associated design system, and technology stack – all built from scratch. As a design team, the challenge lay in developing an approachable brand language, which was trustworthy and stood out from the pack.
Working as part of a 12-person unit (3 designers) we designed and developed a consumer-facing progressive web application alongside a B2B website for car dealers. To better understand existing inefficiencies and users’ pain points in the car-buying journey. We worked closely with the client helping to shape the direction of the project, concepting new features such as the lifestyle matcher.
'We wanted to create an online service that makes car buying as easy as possible for the consumer. With the help of Somo, we were able to scope, design, develop and launch cinch.co.uk in just six months. We recognised that both speed to market and quality were key, and through agile delivery we’ve been able to achieve this.'
Geoff Heddle
Product Director, Cinch
Initially working under strict NDAs and waiting on a third party branding agency became particularly frustrating. To hit the ground running our team was tasked with commencing the design effort with a ‘placeholder brand’ which inevitably created rework. While this exercise went some way to keeping the client stakeholders appeased there was only so much we could do visually without all the pieces of the puzzle. However, by adopting a fully agile framework the team was able to deliver the MVP ahead of time allowing us to focus on future features.
In just 6 months our team delivered an experience that has gone on to be a household name, currently ranked excellent on Trust pilot with a score of 4.3 the efforts of our team were essential to the success of the brand.
• Translating and evolving the Cinch brand identity.
• Providing design leadership.
• Turning low-fidelity wireframes into responsive pixel-perfect designs.
• Developing new features, for example, the ‘Lifestyle matcher’ a visually rich feature that paired the user with their ideal vehicle by guiding them through a series of multiple-choice lifestyle options.
• Regularly liaising with client stakeholders, presenting concepts that both pushed boundaries and managed expectations.
• Creating and maintaining the Cinch design library.
• Supporting the development team.
• Assisting with handover to the newly hired Cinch internal designers.
