Customer Experience & Journey Design/2026

Designing Confidence Into the Car-Buying Journey.

Simplifying a complex, high-stakes transaction so customers can make informed decisions and move forward with confidence.

Role

Design Lead

Year

2026

Outcome

+60% Less Friction

CarMax multi-device flow: customer appraisal screens and associate BusOpsNow intake screens shown on phones against a dark background.

The problem

The existing appraisal journey required customers to navigate multiple steps before receiving an offer or meaningful information about their vehicle’s evaluation, creating unnecessary friction and uncertainty early in the process.

Legacy CarMax Order Entry appraisal request form: a dense desktop form of name, address and county fields. — Friction 1 · Vehicle intake
A lengthy, outdated form required customers to enter personal information before they could begin sharing details about their vehicle.

Legacy 'Now what happens?' screen explaining the car is being examined, with no offer shown. — Friction 2 · Vehicle offer / evaluation
Customers were left waiting without an offer, evaluation details, or a clear timeline for what would happen next.

My role

Design lead for the end-to-end journey. I owned research, strategy, and final design, partnering with product, engineering, and operations leaders to align on one shared experience.

Ownership & scope

Pod of 3–5 · 6–12 months

Research & discovery

Strategy & definition

Concept & prototyping

Design, build & launch

Kamarin, Design lead

Owned

Product

Partnered

Engineering

Informed

Partnered

Operations & field

Partnered

Informed

Partnered

OwnedPartneredInformed

Key decisions

Every call was tied to where people hesitated and why.

Mapped the full journey with customers and frontline associates to locate the exact moments of doubt.
Reframed the commitment step as a low-risk next step, not a final decision.
Rebuilt search → detail → commit on a shared component library so every team shipped the same flow.
Unified web and mobile into one journey instead of two parallel products.

Two ways to run an appraisal

Click to open full resolution

Service blueprint comparing two appraisal journey variants — front-stage user and employee actions, back-stage system actions, and the trade-offs noted for each path.

Outcomes

Committing stopped feeling like a leap and started feeling like the obvious next step.

+60 less friction, +30% offer progression.
Reduced customer drop-off prior to offer.
One shared journey adopted across web and mobile teams.

Redesigned appraisal request: a guided five-step flow asking plain-language vehicle questions with simple yes/no choices. — Redesigned 1 · Vehicle intake
Customers provide vehicle details through conditions, simple selections, and a guided step-by-step flow.

Redesigned offer screen showing the $22,500 offer up front with expiry, market context, and vehicle history below. — Redesigned 2 · Vehicle offer / evaluation
Customers can view their vehicle offer, understand how it was determined, and see what to do next, all in one place.

Transferable problem spaces

Instant quoting & valuationComplex self-serve intakeStatus & progress transparencyOmnichannel service handoffs

AI-powered · Ask anything

Ask about this case study

Describe what you want to know. Answers come only from this portfolio.

ResearchDesign SystemMobileWeb

Next case study

Design system at scale→