Mazda
Redesigning the Mazda Build & Price experience to enhance user engagement, improve conversions, and increase customer satisfaction.
Mazda Build & Price
Redesign the Mazda Build & Price experience to enhance user engagement, improve conversions, and increase customer satisfaction.
The Challenge
Mazda’s existing “Build & Price” experience was under-performing in terms of engagement and conversion. Users struggled to explore vehicle customizations, understand how upgrades and features interacted, and did not progress to the quote or purchase stage. The goal was to redesign the online build-and-price tool to improve user engagement, increase conversion rates, and raise overall customer satisfaction.
My Role
As the UX designer, I was responsible for leading the redesign of the Mazda Build & Price tool. My responsibilities included:
Conducting user research and heuristic evaluation to understand pain points.
Performing competitive analysis to benchmark other build-and-price tools and identify best practices.
Creating wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity designs for the new tool experience.
Presenting designs to the project team and executive leadership.
Conducting usability testing and refining the designs based on feedback.
Collaborating cross-functionally (product, engineering, marketing) to align the redesign with business and technical constraints.
Process
Research
Analyzed site analytics to identify where users dropped out of the build tool.
Conducted heuristic evaluation of the current tool alongside competitor tools.
Mapped out user journeys to understand how users progressed or failed to progress through build steps.
Iterative Design & Prototypes
Built interactive prototypes to simulate the new flow and features.
Testing and feedback to validate ease of use, clarity of new features, and satisfaction with the new experience.
Iterated on the design, adjusting navigation, improving persistence of selections, enhancing visual feedback for upgrades, and refining how price and inventory were surfaced.
Through early prototypes, we tested key interactions and optimized the flow to create a seamless, flexible experience.
Impact
The redesigned Build & Price tool delivered measurable improvements
Improved Engagement — more time spent on the tool and a 12% increase in build completions
Higher Conversion Rates — 66% increase in inventory views and 17% increase in quote requests after using the tool
Brand Satisfaction — 14% improvement in opinion of Mazda since launch
““The new build and price tool is fantastic and gives you a true sense of what it would be like to be sitting in the vehicle as your own.” ”
Learnings
User engagement is driven by clarity and exploration — giving users freedom to explore, visualize upgrades and see how their choices impact price and inventory encourages deeper interaction.
Persistence and transparency matter — when users understand how the tool works, are alerted of ripple effects, and can navigate flexibly, drop-off decreases.
Competitor benchmarking is invaluable — by analyzing how rival brands implement similar tools we identified best practices and opportunity gaps
Measure and iterate early and often — by prototyping early, testing and iterating we avoided major missteps and made improvements based on real user behavior, not just assumptions.
Qualitative feedback complements quantitative metrics — hearing what users feel about the tool helps capture brand and experience opportunities not visible in numbers alone.