Vehicle Finder

When record demand for Ford's new electric vehicles collided with severe production shortages, the standard car-buying journey broke down. Customers who wanted an EV found that local lots were empty.

The only alternative was placing a custom factory order, an extended wait with limited visibility. The problem wasn't just supply; it was that Ford's digital experience forced customers to mentally reconcile these two separate realities on their own.

Rather than building a new tool from scratch, the strategic challenge was bridging Ford's existing build-and-price configurator with its separate inventory search. We developed three high-level approaches to evaluate the interaction model before locking in a direction.

We translated each interaction model into a working flow using representative Vehicle Finder content: vehicle imagery, color choices, package selection, and the live inventory match counter at the heart of the experience. These were not three cosmetic variations; they were distinct, testable hypotheses about how people want to build a car.

The first design direction brought the Hub & Spoke model to high fidelity. A central hub screen displayed the vehicle in its current configuration state: color swatch applied, interior and packages reflected in the image. Attribute selectors branched to dedicated sub-screens where users could compare options in full detail before committing.

The critical addition: a persistent inventory counter at the bottom of every screen, showing exactly how many matching vehicles were available within the user's radius. Every selection immediately updated the count, making the inventory consequences of every choice visible and real, not something to discover later.

The second direction tested a fundamentally different hypothesis: what if users could see the full scope of their configuration choices at once, with an inventory panel that revealed matching vehicles as they scrolled and selected?

This approach favored comparison over commitment. Users could review all available options before making any selection, and the inventory drawer slid in from the side or bottom as results updated. It also introduced a side-by-side view, letting users compare their current and a modified configuration against each other before deciding.

Both directions ended at the same moment of truth. The counter said 26 vehicles matched within five miles, the shopper tapped through, and during a supply shortage most of those 26 were not the exact car. The most common truthful answer was that the exact car wasn't there, and this screen had to turn that into 'here is how close you can get, and what it costs'.

Exact Matches

The fast lane, with nothing left to weigh

The exact tab holds the shopper's precise build at nearby dealers: a '100% Match' badge on every card, the monthly payment, pickup measured in single days, and their preferred dealer pinned to the top. Sorted by distance, the only decision left is where and how soon.

Partial Matches

The trade-off, itemized

Partial matches are grouped into bands ('80% Matches') so closeness is scannable before a single card is read. Every card then leads with its substitutions: the option the shopper would actually get in bold, the one they asked for struck through beside it, and the vehicle re-rendered in the color that would really arrive. With the payment and pickup date on the same card, 'close enough' becomes a judgment made with the facts, not a discovery at the dealership.

The model traveled across both prototypes: behind the persistent counter in Hub & Spoke, and inside the inventory drawer and tray in Single Page Scroll. When testing later split on the tray, with preference and satisfaction pointing in opposite directions, the argument was never about the model itself. It was about how much of it to reveal before the shopper asked.