Hyundai Ioniq 5 launch
Turned one of the most trust-dependent purchases—buying a car—into a confident, fully online experience
Product Design
Transformation
Role
Product Designer
Timeline
12 weeks
team
2 Enginners, 1 PM, me
platform
Web
The Real Problem
Hyundai wasn’t just launching a new vehicle—they were attempting to fundamentally change how cars are bought in Australia.
The real challenge wasn’t usability. It was:
How do you convince someone to spend tens of thousands of dollars online—without ever stepping into a dealership?
This introduced deeper problems:
Low trust in high-value online purchases
Strong reliance on traditional dealership experiences
Complex fulfilment tied to physical locations
No established pattern for end-to-end digital car buying
At its core, this was a behaviour change problem disguised as a UX problem.
Finding the Fix
To solve a behavioural problem, I needed to understand both industry norms and user psychology.
Key activities:
Global benchmarking
Looking beyond automotive into industries that successfully sell high-ticket items onlineCustomer mindset analysis
Identifying where trust breaks down in digital purchasing journeysCollaborative workshops
Aligning business, tech, and design around a shared approach
Core Insight:
Users don’t need more features—they need more confidence.
Design Strategy:
I anchored the experience around three principles:
1. Confidence over persuasion
Reassure users instead of “selling” to them
2. Simplification over flexibility
Reduce complexity in configuration and decision-making
3. Transparency over assumption
Make pricing, delivery, and logistics clear at every step
What Actually Happened
We translated strategy into a focused MVP that reimagined the purchase journey:
Key solutions:
A streamlined configuration flow
Reduced cognitive load with progressive disclosureA high-trust checkout experience
Clear pricing, reassurance messaging, and minimal frictionLocation-aware delivery logic
Solved edge cases for users near state borders and clarified fulfilment expectationsRich product storytelling
Replaced the emotional role of the dealership with immersive digital content
My role:
Led cross-functional workshops
Defined experience principles and product direction
Worked closely with engineers on feasibility and logic (especially location handling)
Guided design execution to ensure consistency and quality
What Changed
The launch proved that the approach worked—not just functionally, but behaviourally.
Impact:
Vehicles sold out in under 2 hours
Hyundai successfully launched its first fully online purchasing experience in Australia
Reduced reliance on dealerships during the purchase phase
More importantly:
We validated that customers are willing to buy a car online—if trust is designed properly.
What I Had to Work With
This project moved quickly and required alignment across multiple stakeholders.
Constraints and inputs included:
A 12-week delivery window
Predefined business goals around digital sales
Dependency on dealership fulfilment infrastructure
Cross-functional stakeholders (product, marketing, engineering)
An emerging—yet undefined—direct-to-consumer strategy
I led workshops to align on:
MVP scope and priorities
Technical feasibility
Success criteria
This ensured we weren’t just designing screens—we were designing something viable, scalable, and shippable.
What I'd Do Differently
Looking back, there are areas I would push further:
1. Earlier validation with real users
Introduce usability testing sooner in the process
Validate trust assumptions before solutioning
2. Stronger measurement framework
Define success metrics beyond sales (e.g. drop-off, confidence signals, conversion stages)
Instrument the experience for deeper behavioural insights
3. Expand post-purchase experience
Extend thinking beyond checkout
Improve onboarding, delivery communication, and ownership journey
What I Learned
This project reinforced several key lessons that now shape how I design products:
✅ Trust is a design output
Not just visual polish—trust is created through clarity, consistency, and predictability
✅ Behaviour change requires restraint
You don’t convince users with more features—you help them feel safe enough to act
✅ Collaboration is critical for innovation
The complexity of this project required deep alignment between design, business, and engineering
✅ Constraints can unlock better design
Working within dealership and logistics limitations forced us to create smarter, clearer experiences