B2C · Marketplace · In-House

HeyCar Mobile App

Led HeyCar’s first native iOS and Android apps from leadership pitch through design sprint and heyLabs build, beating web on lead generation and tightening onboarding around real filter first behavior.

Role

Experience Design & Labs Lead

Context

HeyCar (VW Group) · Berlin

Period

2020 to 2021

Platform

iOS · Android

Executive Summary

HeyCar launched on responsive web in a market where Mobile.de and AutoScout24 already set native expectations. Traffic skewed mobile, but usability data showed we were leaving high intent leads on the table.

With the Head of Strategic Design, I framed the investment case for managing directors, then led the design sprint and storyboard decisions that unlocked heyLabs to build, test, and ship both stores.

The native apps outperformed web on lead generation, our executive north star, with onboarding and subscription flows rewritten after users insisted on filtering inventory before browsing categories.

The core mission

Deliver a dealer grade native journey that respects how Germans actually shop cars on their phones: compare stock fast, trust the handoff, and convert intent into qualified leads without phone tag.

Strategic Landscape

Used car marketplaces in Germany are a attention war: massive inventory, thin margins, and dealer SLAs that punish low quality leads. HeyCar’s web experience earned visits, yet competitors’ native apps owned the rituals shoppers use when they are one parking lot away from a test drive decision.

If we stayed mobile web first, we would keep optimizing a surface users treated as temporary. Native was the strategic bet to control onboarding, notifications, and dealer conversations in one coherent product story.

Diagnosis

The product question was not whether phones mattered. They already dominated sessions. The question was whether HeyCar would own that journey with product craft or rent it from the browser chrome.

User problem

Shoppers tried to filter and compare stock on small screens while standing in lots and on transit. Mobile web added latency and layout debt just as they needed confidence in price, availability, and dealer responsiveness.

Business problem

Lead generation is how dealers fund the partnership. If native competitors delivered smoother inquiry flows, our web only path looked like a funnel leak in sales conversations, not a UX nit.

Organizational problem

Busy executives could not disappear for five straight days, yet the sprint needed their authority to lock scope. Design had to orchestrate a split model between leadership workshops and heyLabs execution without losing narrative continuity.

Team and operating model

The sprint core combined CPO, strategic design, product, and design leadership for fast decisions, while heyLabs owned high fidelity prototyping and usability passes. I facilitated the workshop rhythm and guarded the storyboard so build work stayed tied to KPIs, not side quests.

Design sprint map from day one — Day one map: aligning the squad on questions, evidence, and the decision moments we needed before anyone opened Figma.

Strategic Response

Native had to earn funding with a leadership grade narrative, then earn retention with measurable lead quality, not launch press alone.

Quantify the mobile ceiling

We paired analytics from the responsive site with competitive benchmarks so the native pitch spoke CFO and CPO language, not only design craft.

Lock exec time surgically

Rather than forcing five consecutive days, we ran the highest signal three days with leadership present and handed detailed build plus usability cycles to heyLabs.

Filter first onboarding

Usability showed users wanted inventory control before marketing categories. We resequenced onboarding to respect that mental model.

Lead gen as acceptance test

Every prototype round asked whether a shopper could reach a dealer conversation faster and with clearer context than on web.

Trade-off: We traded textbook sprint purity for attendance and velocity. The narrative stayed tighter because executives co signed the storyboard, even though the calendar choreography was harder for me as facilitator. Lead volume and quality stayed the north star, with usability supplying guardrails so we did not ship a fast app that trained users to bounce.

Sprint operating model

We kept the spirit of the Google Ventures sprint, but adapted the choreography to HeyCar’s matrix.

Days 1 to 3 with leadership

Problem framing, lightning demos, and storyboard decisions happened with the people who could say yes to scope and budget.

heyLabs execution window

Designers and researchers translated the winning board into buildable prototypes and unmoderated plus moderated tests without dragging executives through every hour.

Continuous usability

Each study fed backlog decisions on filters, subscription education, and dealer messaging so we were not guessing after launch.

Sprint documentation showing split between core team and heyLabs — Split model: leadership locks the storyboard, heyLabs carries build and iterative testing so busy stakeholders stay decisive, not exhausted.

Design & Delivery

Evidence that shaped the interface

Research finding

Mobile web sessions showed high drop off between discovery and dealer contact, especially when users tried to refine inventory quickly on the move.

Design decision

We prioritized native navigation patterns for filtering, saved flows, and clearer dealer handoffs so the product felt purpose built, not shrunken desktop.

HeyCar app solution screens — Solution exploration: translating sprint decisions into UI that keeps inventory comparison and dealer trust at the center.

Research finding

Users rebelled against category first onboarding that mirrored marketing site maps.

Design decision

We pushed filtering and subscription education earlier so the first session felt like a serious shopping tool, not a brochure.

HeyCar mobile app screens in context — High fidelity prototypes used in usability: validating flows before engineering committed across iOS and Android.

Team reviewing prototype on large screen during sprint — Sprint closure: cross functional review of the winning storyboard before heyLabs finalized pixels for store submission.

Impact

Lead gen

Native apps beat responsive web on lead generation, the KPI managing directors tracked for dealer satisfaction.

2 stores

Shipped coordinated iOS and Android releases so marketing and dealer ops could message one native promise.

Onboarding

Reworked first run experience after studies showed users wanted filters before categories, improving task success in test sessions.

Numbers stayed tied to dealer conversations, not vanity downloads, which kept post launch debates grounded.

Transformation

The sprint gave HeyCar a repeatable template for how leadership participates in discovery without becoming a bottleneck to build velocity.

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Shared vocabulary

Executives, strategic design, and heyLabs now had a common storyboard artifact that connected research, scope, and launch criteria.

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Native credibility

Shipping both stores signaled HeyCar could match incumbents on pocket presence, not only brand marketing.

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User anchored iteration

Usability became a gate for onboarding changes, which reduced opinion loops inside the product org.

Leadership Principles

Facilitation is strategy

Calendars are a design constraint. Orchestrating who is in the room when is as important as the Figma file.

Ship the decision record

Storyboards are not art. They are contracts that protect engineering from thrash when executives rotate attention.

Listen for sequence

Users often describe navigation order, not visual style. Fixing sequence unlocked more lift than cosmetic polish.

Looking ahead

Winning the first native release opened the roadmap for deeper personalization, dealer side tooling, and lifecycle messaging now that HeyCar owned install real estate on customer phones.