Get the campervan category to product-market-fit.
Whilst keeping an eye on how the design could roll out across other categories.

Who are Fat Llama?

Rent almost anything

Fat Llama is an online marketplace which enables users to rent items peer-to-peer.

Users rent their belongings to earn extra income, or borrow items to save money.

Objectives and Key Results

Used to focus the team around an ambitious goal

Fat Llama sets quarterly OKRs split amongst the cross-functional teams to enable everyone to be autonomous and tackle their goals how best they see fit.

Get the campervan category to product-market-fit

I was part of the Marketplace team which is dedicated to growth and one of our OKRs was to get the campervan category to product-market-fit.

How we would measure success

• Get to 167 monthly new borrowers by the end of March 2019 (currently 8).
• Grow the campervan inventory to 1,000 (currently 518).

What is product-market-fit

Product-market-fit at Fat Llama is defined as a category of items where it generates more than the cost of acquisition.

The cross-functional team

• 1x Product Designer (myself)
• 1x Project Owner
• 1x Growth Manager
• 1x Front-end Developer
• 1x Back-end Developer

My role

• User research
• Competitor research
• Visual/production design

Assumptions & Hypothesis

Defining our assumptions and hypothesis gave us something concrete to test against

Assumptions

• Campervan owners are put off from listing on Fat Llama because the website doesn't look like what they expect from a campervan rental site.
• Users are confused by vehicle insurance which puts them off renting.
• The inability to adjust for seasonal pricing puts off lenders and confuses borrowers as the quote may be different to the displayed price.
• Users are less likely to rent as they are not aware of additional photos.
• Users find digging around for key pieces of information which makes the site feel like hard work and puts them off renting.

Hypothesis

• By redesigning the item page to feel more like a traditional campervan rental site campervan owners will be more likely to list their campervans.
• By making it easier for users to learn about vehicle inusrance they will be more likely to rent.
• Changing the way pricing works would require a lot of work. By at least pre-warning users that prices may differ from what is displayed we can reduce frustration.
• By making it clearer that there are additional photos, users will be more likely to rent as they have more chance of seeing something they like.
• By displaying key information (make, model, year, seats) users will find what they are looking for quicker and be more likely to rent.

Research

Quantitive and qualitative learnings that informed the design.

Stakeholder interviews

There’s always people within the business who are closer to the problem or have more interaction with users than you do.

I interviewed both the Growth Manager in charge of this piece of work as well as one of the Customer Support team members who deals specifically with campervans to extrapolate as much insight into frequently asked questions as possible.

Interviews with users

The Growth Manager on my team had previously completed a large research piece where he interviewed upwards of 40 active and potential campervan lenders to fully understand their frustrations with, and hopes for, Fat Llama.

This qualitative research was incredibly useful in shaping the kinds of information that was critical for both borrowers and lenders.

I was informed by this research but did not undertake it myself.

A small section of the spreadsheet Alex (Growth Manager) put together with the findings from his user interviews

Seeing the site through our users’ eyes

Using Full Story I was able to watch several user sessions where users interacted with a campervan page to understand what works and what doesn’t.

Key learnings

• Users spend a lot of time in the description looking for key information.
• Users do not appear to interact with the map to see location.
• Users do not interact with the image carousel.

A screenshot of Fullstory from one of the user sessions

Competitor research

Once I understood the business and user goals I began exploring competitors to benchmark strengths and weaknesses.

It became clear that there is an established pattern across campervan rental sites which supports the qualitative research that lenders didn’t feel Fat Llama felt like a legitimate campervan rental platform.

It was useful to see the hierarchy of importance each competitor placed on the various pieces of information.

A few of the competitors I looked at during the research phase

The redesign

Original design

Key areas to explore

• Map hidden behind a tab that looks deactivated.
• Not clear there are additional images.
• Item title too prominent whilst adding little value.
• Long “What’s the item” description which is hard to read.
• “Insurance provided by” not useful as provides no additional information.

A screenshot of the original campervan product page

Sketching and sharing work

When starting a new design I like to loosely throw some ideas down on paper. This can empower quick conversations with other designers on the team, or something visual for developers to feed off.

Being relatively new to the project I needed to tap into the collective learnings of the team. By running a Design Studio session I was able to encourage the team to get their knowledge out of their heads and down on paper.

Sketching session with Alex (Growth Manager) and Ziv (Product Owner)

New design

Key areas of improvement

• Moved the item title lower down the page (images and price more important).
• More obvious that there are additional images.
• Moved Reviews next to Price to add some social proof.
• Made the Insurance card interactive which will link to an already existing FAQ about insurance for campervans.
• Introduced key features with icons to make them more scannable.
• Added a tooltip next to the price which explains a little about seasonal pricing.
• Design feels more in keeping with established campervan rental websites.

A screenshot of the redesigned campervan product page

A screenshot of the grid

A collection of icons designs for the camepervan item page

App design

A screenshot of the redesigned native campervan product page

Feedback

I received this feedback from Ziv Reichert, Growth & Product Owner at Fat Llama.

“Joe joined our team and immediately settled into the role as though he'd been working with us for months. Joe has a strong eye for detail he works very quickly without comprising quality. Lastly, Joe is a genuinely nice guy that makes for a great addition to any team. I can highly recommend him to any organisation that is seeking a product designer.”