Problem
SecureClose® has been a dominant name in the automotive document storage and signing industry for almost a decade, but in Nov of 2023 they found themselves in quite a predicament: customers were leaving.
Not even necessarily because there were better competitors, but instead because the technology at the company had fallen so far behind that the UX became unbearable. To accomplish a single task a user needed to install and open 3-4 separate applications, copy and paste long codes from one application to another, and tolerate an extremely manual process with very little visibility into a core part of any dealerships business: their contracts.
The situation deteriorated so much that despite their significant patent, customers were still willing to leave for even an indirect competitor. They needed a new technology, and fast.
Mission
We were brought in to unify their separate platforms, redesign and rebrand the product, and rebuild core user flows from the ground up based on the learnings and failings of the past product, as well as what our team could learn from the discovery phase to come.
Problem
SecureClose® has been a dominant name in the automotive document storage and signing industry for almost a decade, but in Nov of 2023 they found themselves in quite a predicament: customers were leaving.
Not even necessarily because there were better competitors, but instead because the technology at the company had fallen so far behind that the UX became unbearable. To accomplish a single task a user needed to install and open 3-4 separate applications, copy and paste long codes from one application to another, and tolerate an extremely manual process with very little visibility into a core part of any dealerships business: their contracts.
The situation deteriorated so much that despite their significant patent, customers were still willing to leave for even an indirect competitor. They needed a new technology, and fast.
Mission
We were brought in to unify their separate platforms, redesign and rebrand the product, and rebuild core user flows from the ground up based on the learnings and failings of the past product, as well as what our team could learn from the discovery phase to come.
Problem
SecureClose® has been a dominant name in the automotive document storage and signing industry for almost a decade, but in Nov of 2023 they found themselves in quite a predicament: customers were leaving.
Not even necessarily because there were better competitors, but instead because the technology at the company had fallen so far behind that the UX became unbearable. To accomplish a single task a user needed to install and open 3-4 separate applications, copy and paste long codes from one application to another, and tolerate an extremely manual process with very little visibility into a core part of any dealerships business: their contracts.
The situation deteriorated so much that despite their significant patent, customers were still willing to leave for even an indirect competitor. They needed a new technology, and fast.
Mission
We were brought in to unify their separate platforms, redesign and rebrand the product, and rebuild core user flows from the ground up based on the learnings and failings of the past product, as well as what our team could learn from the discovery phase to come.
Beginning
This is what the product looked like before redevelopment. It was clearly in need of an overhaul to bring it into the modern era of digital products.
Discovery
We started off with a deep discovery process. I had two weeks of calls with their business representatives for often multiple hours a day clarifying initial development requests, learning more about the company's history, learning more about where the product was specifically struggling, and getting a much deeper understanding of their goals for the product in the short and long term.
This deep communication formed a solid foundation of company and industry specific knowledge, and built a sense of trust that we really, truly understood their product goals. This is the "why" behind their product.
I then turned my attention towards competitive research to better understand how SecureClose stacks up against direct and indirect competitors, and how SecureClose could leverage modern digital signing experiences from the likes of DocuSign, PandaDocs, and more.
Finally, I completed research into their existing product (complete with documentation of every screen and user flow). This allowed me to paint a very accurate "Where we are now" picture that I could then bridge to "Where we are going".
Roadmap
I pitched their leadership team a new product structure that combined 4 separate softwares into one cohesive experience with the following pillars:
Unify the platform into one cohesive product to eliminate the need for users to switch back and forth between different applications.
Clean up and simplify the UX by diligently studying dealership workflows and build for those workflows, instead of forcing them to adjust to ours.
Build lean and flexibly. With such a major product re-release, it was important to not shock users too much and leave ample room for product adjustments based on alpha and beta release feedback.
From here, a product roadmap was created with high level goals and timelines for the next 4 months of design work. A sprint backlog was created on the design side, and a general structure was outlined in an in-depth product proposal document.
All in all, SecureClose leadership was delighted with my timelines, scope of work, and methodologies, and gave me the green light to continue.
Design Process
For every major piece of their product, the following process was repeated:
Discovery
Goal: Learn about this feature's history, what users liked and didn't like, and understand the team's goals for this feature. Loop in engineers early for feature estimates.
Research
Are competitors using any similar features? Are there any ideas worth investigating for this product? How can we leverage similar flows or UX into making our product better?
PRD
Create a thorough and understandable PRD that summarizes hours of meeting context into one document with simple goals and context. Confirm plan with engineers.
Design
Collaborate with designer, assist in user testing, demo early versions to the team to make sure we're tracking in the right direction.
Review
Review the complete design with relevant stakeholders, collect feedback.
Implement Feedback
Final review
Repeat!
Conclusion
SecureClose was a challenging product for multiple reasons:
A company with 10+ years of product history that we were expected to learn very quickly
A slightly traumatized management team afraid we were going to try to rip them off like their past teams.
Massive scale of work.
We managed to learn quickly and redirect SecureClose towards a path of success. The final product ended up being so large that the designs couldn't even fit in one maxed out Figma page view. A product this large also meant there was a LOT of documentation, a LOT of interconnected features which must be considered and planned out carefully, complex interactions like linking and managing different accounts, complicated and custom user access roles, and so much more.
That being said, it was an amazing experience working on digitally transforming a company from an outdated product that users were abandoning to something that reinvigorated the SecureClose team and that they wanted to shout about from the rooftops to current and new customers.
