ashley hadzopoulos

Genesis Motors set out to rebuild their site to make it more functional and nimble, and take advantage of all the efficiencies of a modern CMS platform. The luxury automotive brand, newly rebranded as a standalone lineup separate from parent company Hyundai, also wanted to push boundaries of the online shopping experience by leveraging the latest web technologies to bring the showroom to the user.

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Both project tracks were planned to run and deploy simultaneously over a phased release schedule. An agile/waterfall hybrid methodology was adapted for the agency model and unique team structure, allowing us to make steady progress against a deadline, while evolving requirements as needs changed.

 

The main site and configurator features were defined using qualitative and quantitative user research, with stimulus made available by early sprints of rapid prototyping and optimization. Synthesis informed subsequent sprints, until a validated design was ready to drop into the development queue.

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A backlog of features was maintained with frequent reprioritization exercises, to ensure the most critical elements were incorporated first, per the release strategy and marketing communications needs.

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As the site frontend was redesigned, new specs for content creation were captured and the creative team was onboarded to new processes as they simultaneously developed new content for the new frontend components. The authoring user experience was also taken into consideration, with usability and flexibility optimizations constantly being processed through the backlog in conjunction with enhancements from the consumer and marketer perspectives. 

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The configurator, also known as the Build & Price tool, is a traditionally a 2D experience for auto brands. It was important to reinvent and elevate this typical tool in a modern and elegant way. It was developed as a web app using WebGL and a pipeline for highly optimized 3D assets and texture maps. As a fully 3D experience, users are now able to fly around the car, zoom in, enter the interior, as well as interact with car elements like the doors and headlights. The 3D assets were then mapped to a mix of live and static shopping data, so users could build combinations based on pricing and real configuration logic. Upon completion of a configuration, the user is served a build summary and series of dynamic modules for key actions, like contacting their nearest dealer and searching inventory.

 

The final result was a responsive, cross-browser, cross-platform experience using the latest web technologies, offering all visitors a rich shopping experience while affording the brand and agency a more nimble and flexible web platform.