Maria Bank | UX/UI Designer | Chicago, Illinois

Student Design Challenge

Redesigning the CAT Rental Store.

Role - Researcher, Designer | Tools - Figma, Maze | Duration - 2 Months | Team - 4 Other Designers

Problem

A Complicated Rental Process Hurts Customer Experience and Business Revenue.

The current Cat Rental Store website lacks a simple and intuitive way for customers to rent equipment attachments, leading to compatibility issues and incomplete rental orders. This confusion leaves some customers unaware of available options, resulting in missed rental opportunities and potential revenue loss for the business.

The Solution

Modernizing the Cat Rental Store with a Simple, Mobile-First Rental Experience.

Our mobile redesign of The Cat Rental Store revolutionizes the way customers rent equipment attachments. By prioritizing user-friendly navigation, compatibility checks, and a streamlined rental process, the new design ensures a seamless and accessible experience, allowing customers to efficiently manage rentals anytime, anywhere.

Key Features

Improving User Experience

Organization

Our redesign was based on a handful of key features, including: organization, clarity, simplicity, and confidence.

Our new catalog pages provide a clean

and simple grid layout that makes browsing and selecting effortless.

By showcasing only significant product information, we ensure customers can make decisions quickly and confidently.

Clear Display

The product screens provide a clear overview of pricing options and simple rental selection tools. The inclusion of compatible attachments ensures customers can easily find and add the right equipment to complete their orders seamlessly.

Simplicity

The cart screen provides users with a clear and organized summary of their selected rentals. Key features such as estimated pricing, delivery or pick-up options, and customizable rental dates ensure customers have full control over their rental experience.

Confirmation

The order confirmation text message feature provides customers with reassurance and real-time updates on their rental orders. This modern addition enhances communication and customer satisfaction while offering an opt-out option for flexibility.

To redesign the Cat Rental Store website, we first needed to understand where users struggle and what the business hopes to achieve. Our research focused on uncovering pain points in the rental process and identifying ways to make equipment selection simpler, faster, and more reliable.

The redesign aimed to create a seamless, intuitive rental experience for Cat Rental Store customers while supporting the business’s operational and revenue objectives.

Simplify equipment attachment selection
Reduce compatibility errors
Enable faster rental completion

Increase successful rental transactions
Minimize customer confusion
Boost overall rental revenue

Research

Understanding The Challenge

Goals & Objectives

A comprehensive analysis of key competitors, focusing on their approaches to rental layouts, user experience navigation, inventory management, and pricing strategies. This research highlights best practices and potential gaps that will guide innovative solutions.

Mapping the Customer Journey

A detailed visualization of the steps users take to browse, select, and complete their attachment rental process. This flow highlights opportunities to streamline interactions and enhance user satisfaction.

Persona Profile

In order to better understand the challenges and needs of our users, we created a persona representing a Cat Rental Store customer. This persona highlights the frustrations, goals, and behaviors of someone navigating the site to rent equipment.

Brainstorming & Sketching

To begin shaping solutions, we started with a “How Might We” exercise to reframe our main consumer problem into actionable opportunities. From there, we moved into sketching, using quick visuals to translate ideas into tangible concepts. These early concepts gave us a clearer sense of direction and guided how we approached more detailed design decisions.

Why Mobile?

The Final Prototype

Measuring Impact

My team and I decided on a mobile approach because we recognized it would better suit the needs of our target demographic—busy or inexperienced customers frequently on the go who rely on convenience and accessibility.

Usability Testing

To validate our design decisions, we conducted live usability testing using Maze. Participants were asked to complete key rental tasks, and their interactions were recorded and analyzed.

Project Impact

Our final design simplified equipment selection, reduced confusion, and enabled faster rental completion. Usability testing showed a 100% task success rate, confirming that the design met our key goals. These results indicate that users can navigate the rental process more efficiently and confidently, while the business benefits from fewer incomplete orders and increased potential revenue.

Lessons Learned & Future Developments

Iteration Matters: Had we been given more time, we could have explored design solutions in greater depth, conducted more prototyping cycles, and refined the testing phases.

Desktop View: Focusing only on the mobile version limited the scope of the design. I learned that considering a desktop view addition later in the process could provide a broader understanding of user needs across different devices.

User Testing: We saw that conducting more extensive user testing at different stages could have uncovered potential issues earlier.

Testing showed a 100% task success rate, confirming our streamlined navigation and simplified equipment selection. While no major issues were found, the results validated our design approach and highlighted areas for potential future improvements.

Below are images of our early wireframes, where we focused on simplicity and efficiency.