Capital One x UTD Design Challenge
Carfully - A transparent auto-financing tool
Timeline
Sep - Dec 2025
Role
Product Designer
With
Joie Lin
Ann Jayan
Kennedy Cahn
Maya Poduval
Skills
Product Design
User Research
Prototyping
CHALLENGE
Designing a digital tool that meets first-time car buyers at whatever financial point to demystify their car-buying journey
Partnering with Capital One's Financial team, my team and I worked through this 7-sprint challenge to research and create a digital-tool.
SOLUTION
Carfully: a guided learning tool and resource hub for first-time car buyers
A web application designed to break down the car-buying journey into manageable steps through structured, interactive modules.
CORE FLOWS
Home Page
After completing an onboarding questionnaire, the user is placed in 1 of 3 tracks.
Learning Modules
The user can navigate through different modules regarding different aspects of purchasing a vehicle.
Financial Help
When deciding on a vehicle to purchase, Carfully also provides statistics to help the user find the right financial fit.
RESEARCH
Observing characteristics of other problems
Conducting a competitive analysis on 4 other car-selling websites and found 3 key issues within them, these being: Confusion about affordability, Lack of transparency, and Limited Financial Literacy.
Surveying First-Time Car Buyers
With over 100+ survey respondents, my team and I better understood the unique needs and challenges of first-time car buyers.
Interviewing target users
After conducting a broad survey, we continued our research sprint with an in-depth interview process with 5 people who fit within our target demographic.
3/5 participants
Would rely/prefer word of mouth, or peer-sourced information (i.e forums)
4/5 participants
Plan to use a down payment and monthly payments to fully own the car
4/5 participants
Hold negative or wary impressions of salespeople, viewing them as untruthful and difficult to trust
Initial Wireframe's
Mapping out the whole user journey, my team and I designed the different types of pages we wanted to include.
Brand Identity
We concluded by finalizing the website's brand kit and color scheme, choosing professional tones that mirror Capital One's identity to establish a foundation of trust and transparency.
