Case study · Automotive
Automotive ownership experience
Rebuilding a battery brand's website as the hub of the whole ownership journey.
- Client
- Leading automotive battery brand
- Wow Labz role
- UX strategy, IA and UI design
- Sector
- Automotive
- Engagement
- 15 weeks, phased
At a glance
The shape of the engagement
Discovery and strategy, UX architecture, UI design, content, then handoff.
Performance vehicles, off-road, marine, RV owners and general automotive consumers, each arriving with a different question.
From research and journey maps through to a design system, analytics strategy and developer documentation.
Wow Labz delivered the strategy and design. Implementation sat with a separate partner.
The brief
A brand absent from its own purchase
A car battery is bought roughly once every few years, usually in a hurry, usually off a shelf. The manufacturer's product is technical enough that most buyers cannot tell two options apart, so the decision gets made by whoever is standing next to them: the retail associate. The brand is not in the room.
After the sale it gets worse, because nothing happens at all. There was no ownership journey, no lifecycle tracking, nothing that told a customer when their battery was ageing or gave them a reason to come back to the same name. Retention was weak for a structural reason: the relationship ended at the till, and the digital and retail experiences did not know about each other.
The brief was not a website redesign. It was giving the brand a relationship it had never had.
How it ran
Four phases over fifteen weeks
Discovery and strategy
Stakeholder workshops, competitive analysis, a UX audit and SEO review, customer journey mapping, KPI definition and platform requirements.
UX architecture
Information architecture, sitemap and user flows, low and mid fidelity wireframes, mobile-first throughout, then user testing against them.
UI design
Homepage, listing and detail pages, a battery selector, technical education, support, brand story and checkout, on a responsive design system.
Content and handoff
Content audit, SEO copywriting and product content optimisation, then developer-ready Figma, organised assets, analytics tagging and QA support.
The design
A hub, not a brochure
The strategic move was reframing what the site is for. Treated as marketing, a battery manufacturer's website is a catalogue nobody visits twice. Treated as a hub, it becomes the place CRM, loyalty, retail integration, analytics and support connect into one customer experience, which is the only version that earns a second visit.
Everything downstream follows from that. Product discovery had to solve the differentiation problem directly, through a battery finder, vehicle fitment, comparison tools and technical education, plus an AI recommendation assistant to guide people who cannot phrase the question. Ownership had to exist at all, through registration, warranty management, maintenance reminders and a service timeline. And commerce had to work across direct, retail and marketplace, including buy online and pick up in store, because the customer does not think in channels.
A note on scope. Wow Labz delivered the UX strategy, research, architecture, UI design system and handoff documentation. The build was carried out by a separate implementation partner. The outcomes below are what the design was built to achieve, not measured post-launch results.
What the design covers
Three jobs the old site did not do
Find the right one
A battery finder with vehicle fitment, side-by-side comparison, interactive charts and technical education, plus an AI recommendation assistant. All aimed at the same thing: letting a buyer decide without needing an associate to decide for them.
Own it, not just buy it
Battery registration, warranty management, maintenance reminders and a service timeline. This is the phase that did not exist before, and it is the one that turns a purchase into a relationship.
One journey, every channel
Direct, retail and marketplace commerce with buy online and pick up in store, over a CRM with a loyalty engine, personalised recommendations and an ownership dashboard.
Stack
What it was built with
Questions
The engagement, answered
Who was the client?
A leading automotive battery manufacturer serving performance, off-road, marine, RV and general automotive segments. The engagement is published without naming the brand, the client-facing agency or the implementation partner. What is described here is the design work and the reasoning behind it.
Did Wow Labz build the website?
No. Wow Labz delivered UX strategy, research, information architecture, UI design and handoff documentation. Implementation was carried out by a separate partner, and the deliverable was a developer-ready design system rather than a running site.
What was the core problem?
The brand had no direct relationship with its customer. Technical complexity meant buyers could not differentiate products, so retail associates effectively made the decision, and after purchase there was no ownership journey, no lifecycle tracking and consequently weak retention.
What was actually delivered?
Thirteen deliverables across fifteen weeks: UX research, information architecture, customer journey maps, buyer personas, wireframes, a UI design system, responsive designs, Figma handoff, SEO content strategy, design specifications, developer documentation, analytics strategy and QA support.
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