eCom
Go Auto
Turning a branding redesign into a customer-centered digital experience
Objective
The goal was to redefine Go Auto’s digital experience across multiple dealerships and sub-brands by aligning stakeholders, business goals, and customer needs through a structured discovery and UX design process.
Results
Client
GoAuto
Industry
Automobile, Retail
Project Time
4 months (2022)
Methods
- Competitive Analysis
- User Flows & Customer Service Map
- Wireframes
Company Profile
Go Auto is one of North America’s largest automotive dealership networks, representing over 50 dealerships and multiple automotive brands. As the company prepared to roll out a refreshed brand identity, they saw an opportunity to improve the customer journey and bring all websites under a consistent, scalable digital framework.
The challenge
The redesign began as a branding exercise—but quickly grew into something bigger.
Go Auto wanted to:
Improve how customers explore, compare, and purchase vehicles online
Ensure consistent brand expression across dozens of dealership sites
Turn fragmented digital touchpoints into a unified, user-friendly experience
The real challenge: balancing innovation and feasibility.
Ambitious ideas met complex realities — budgets, timelines, and multiple internal stakeholders with competing priorities.
Approach
Discovery: Understanding Business & Customers
I led the early discovery phase to uncover needs and constraints:
Stakeholder Interviews: Collected insights from leadership on strategic priorities and internal expectations.
Customer Interviews: Explored real customer journeys to identify key pain points and motivations.
Competitive Analysis: Benchmarked the digital experience of leading automotive brands to identify gaps and opportunities.
Heuristic Evaluation: Audited the existing Go Auto site to surface usability issues and missed conversion opportunities.
These insights revealed critical alignment gaps between brand goals and user needs — and set the direction for what truly mattered.
Definition: Translating Insights into Structure
I turned research findings into actionable frameworks for design:
Personas: Defined three key audience segments based on research and market data.
User Stories: Outlined core tasks and journeys for each persona.
User Flows: Designed end-to-end task flows for critical interactions like vehicle search and quote requests.
Sitemap: Restructured the information architecture for clarity and scalability.
Together, these defined the foundation for a customer-centric redesign.
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Design: From Vision to Reality
Once the strategy was clear, I helped structure the design phase into manageable, agile sprints:
Requirements Definition: Prioritized features and turned vision into tangible specifications.
Sprint Planning: Organized deliverables into reusable templates and components.
Wireframes & Prototypes: Built annotated, interactive wireframes to test and validate early design decisions.
Usability Testing: Collected real user feedback to refine flows before final design and development.
Throughout the process, I balanced strategic direction with practical constraints, ensuring ambitious ideas didn’t derail delivery.
✅ Improved Customer Flow
A simplified navigation and more intuitive site structure made it easier for customers to compare vehicles and complete key tasks.
✅ Cross-Team Collaboration
Marketing, product, and design teams gained shared clarity, leading to faster and more confident decisions.
✅ Strategic Design Roadmap
The project ended with a realistic, scalable roadmap for future dealership sites — connecting brand, user, and business priorities.
Reflection
This project was a masterclass in balancing vision with pragmatism. By structuring discovery and prioritizing alignment early, we avoided scope creep, created a stronger design foundation, and turned a branding initiative into a strategic digital transformation effort.
“Frauke helped us turn dozens of ideas into a focused, achievable roadmap. Her clarity and facilitation made a complex redesign feel manageable.”
VP of Marketing, GoAuto
