Rentalcars.com – display search results as a grid view besides list view.
The Brief
On search results the cars are listed as list view. One reason for experimenting with this design is that a lot of the competitors have grid view integrated in their search results. This alternative to the standard list view helps users compare car prices faster as it is more easy for the eye to follow.
The second reason for experimenting with this is that when browsing via list view, users’ attention begins to drop as they browse down the page. When using grid view, the information is shortened to prevent too much text wrapping. This leads to a more even distribution of the users’ attention.
By implementing grid view on search results I presumed that the booking process will be faster.
What I did
- Problem definition. Users need to be able to find whatever they need in as little amount of time as possible. List view displays content in a single column list. It’s also text heavy. At most, list view can display small icons or thumbnails next to the text. Users rely on reading too much text to make their selection.
On the other hand, grid view displays content in two or more columns with pricing dominating most of the space. Users rely on quick scanning to make their selection. - Observation. My process continues with observing and identifying the users who will use the grid view. I found out what car types and what suppliers are most used according to analytics, in order to determine their order in the grid view. This was doubled by a competitive analysis of the way Rentalcars competitors are displaying their grid views.
- Ideation. I generated a broad set of ideas based on what I found during the previous two steps: observation and problem definition. Sketching out ideas to share in daily and weekly Scrum meetings and communicated them to the Product Owner.
- Prototyping. I developed a hi-fi prototype after receiving feedback on the draft versions. Additionally I also integrated HTML code.
Deliverables
- Mockups, wireframes;
- Hi-fi prototypes.
Results & Business Impact
Based on analytics, I concluded that users don’t interact too much with grid view for displaying cars on search results. Grid view forces users to scroll horizontally which doesn’t come naturally to most users. The user needs an overview of the entire information in order to choose between cars. In this context the list view follows a more natural reading pattern, the “F-shaped”, which suits better this type of content.
- After being A/B tested with users it became an unsuccessful experiment, clickthrough rates were half than on list views;
- List view outperformed grid view also on conversion rate, which were less than 1%.