Challenge Summary
Welcome to the Adesa Help Center Redesign Challenge! We're looking to redesign the "Help Center" section of the Adesa website. There is a lot of very useful information that needs to be made more accessible by designing a better user experience and user interface. Adesa is a company that is involved in re-marketing vehicles through online and offline auctions.
We really want to focus on the user experience and bringing simple and clean interactions to the Adesa "Help Center".
Round 1
Please submit your initial design for checkpoint review.
- Main Help Dashboard (desktop/mobile)
- Help Section/Topic/Content Page (desktop/mobile)
- Search (desktop)
- Provide a click-path diagram if you have time.
Please number your screens (00, 01, 02, 03, etc)
Round 2
Submit your final design concepts for review, after applying checkpoint feedback.
- All requested screens
Please number your screens (00, 01, 02, 03, etc)
Challenge Details
Adesa is a company involved in re-marketing vehicles through auctions (similar to eBay - but just vehicles). These auctions are held both online and offline, and users are typically car dealers looking to resell vehicles they purchase at these auctions.
The challenge is to redesign and improve the user experience for the Adesa "Help Center". You can find the existing Help Center here: http://help.adesa.com
Design Problem
The current website has a lot of useful and helpful information, but too much of it placed redundantly and in a cluttered manner. The information the user is seeking may be buried between a section or would require them to scroll through a lot of unwanted info to get there. The user has to click a lot to see the information - this is very cumbersome.
- The user experience is old and dated, it needs to be more intuitive for "Help Center"
Design Goals
We need the site to be more user-friendly, quick and easy to use, as well as visually attractive and responsive (for use on different device sizes). Think about how we can make the user experience better, and allow users to quickly fined helpful show all of this content (text, links, videos, etc) in the most intuitive manner possible.
Treat this as an exercise in content planning, the current website needs to be restructured so that the content of the sub-pages is more easily accessible. Right now, if you navigate into any section, all of the content is available in the form of a directory - this needs to be improved so that it's easier to find what you're looking for, rather than reading through lists. The secondary page you navigate into after selecting a Help section, is what needs to be restructured the most. Does keeping it a 2-column grid still make sense or moving to a 3-column grid help show the content? Research other "help centers" on sites that you visit... what works for you and makes sense?
Navigation Items
We need to rework the exisitng navigation items, and include new ones. Here are the primary items:
- Search
- Bidding and Buying
- Sell
- Services
- Walkthrough
- FAQ's
- Training
Search is the most important component of the main Adesa site and has the following "Help" categories:
- Dealer Block
- Run List
- Live Block
- Global Block
For example. As a user I want to be able search the current Run Lists, to determine if there are vehicles I might be interested in purchasing through auction. I might go to the Help Center to learn more about this feature and how to use it.
Attachments & References
Important: Download files here
HelpStrategyOverview.pdf
- Document to help provide details on why we want to redesign
HelpStrategy-Wireframes.pdf
- Initial design exploration (do not copy!)
- Home screen: The "Search Help Topic" box on the right should be first/left (It is used the most)
ADESA_BrandGuide.pdf
- Brand details (colors, fonts etc)
Screen Requirements
Overall, all of the screens need to be designed into a two or three column layout so as to be responsive for all device sizes.
1. Main Help Dashboard
- How do we show the user all the help sections at once - can we work this into the navigation?
- The current dashboard is just a collection of icons that send them toward different sections, there are no actions they can perform directly from this page, can we change that?
- We still need to be able to navigate to all of these help sections however, so they need to be displayed in a more visualy appealing manner
2. Help Section/Topic/Content Page:
- NOTE: This is what we really want you to focus on - how do these help content pages look and work? What makes finding helpful information easier?
- See http://help.adesa.com/Bid-Buy.html as a reference for a help section with varied kinds of topics/content.
- This can be designed as a template, so that there is consistency between the different sub-sections, but try to show as many of the sections screens as possible (sell, services, etc)
- This is current very awkward (with the left/right column interactions) and not very useful
- Is there a better grid layout?
3. Search:
Important: We have two different types of Search concepts in the Help Center
1) We have the overall "help center search" that you see at the top of the page - this is your typical site search for content and should return search results based on things your looking for.
2) We have "Search Help Topics" - this is information that a user might be looking for on how to use the Search features on the main Adesa site.
- Search Topics in the Help Center is more about finding helpful content to teach customers how to search and find vehicles
- Show us how to find and expore helpful "Search Topics" (http://help.adesa.com/Search.html)
- Show us how "Searching" in the Help Center might work
Target Devices (Responsive)
- Desktop/Web: width 1280px with height as required.
- Mobile: iPhone 5 Portrait size is fine
Branding Guidelines, Fonts and Colors
- See attached AdesaBrandingGuidelines.PDF for colors/logo/type usage (pages 16-30)
- See pages 30-40 for guidelines on stock photo usage
(Attachments in Google Drive folder linked above)
Target User
- New users of Adesa who are looking for "Help" content
Judging Criteria
- How well you plan the user experience and capture your ideas visually
- Capacity to provide a design out of the box.
- Cleanliness of your graphics and design
- Originality.
Submission & Source Files
Preview Image
Please create your preview image as one (1) 1024x1024px JPG or PNG file in RGB color mode at 72dpi and place a screenshot of your submission within it.
Submission File
Submit JPG/PNG for your submission files.
Source Files
All original source files of the submitted design. Files should be created in Adobe Photoshop and saved as layered PSD file, or Adobe Illustrator as a layered AI file.
Final Fixes
As part of the final fixes phase you may be asked to modify your graphics (sizes or colors) or modify overall colors. We may ask you to update your design or graphics based on checkpoint feedback.
Please read the challenge specification carefully and watch the forums for any questions or feedback concerning this challenge. It is important that you monitor any updates provided by the client or Studio Admins in the forums. Please post any questions you might have for the client in the forums.