User research and website journey optimisation

Manufacturing in Australia since 1955, Bendix is Australia’s leading supplier of automotive braking products.

In recent years, Bendix has been expanding its product offering beyond passenger vehicle brake pads to include rotors, disc brakes, and specialised parts for commercial vehicles and European models. As their business model evolves, the Bendix website needs to evolve with it—so we undertook a series of research and strategy activities to help Bendix ensure their website is supporting their business goals into the future.

Understanding the business landscape

To gain a better sense of Bendix’s business priorities, we ran a series of workshops with stakeholders across Marketing, Sales, Technology, and Product. These sessions allowed us to do a deep dive into the challenges and opportunities Bendix was facing in the market, identify pain points in existing processes, as well as areas where the website could add value to Bendix’s business strategy in the medium–long term.

As part of these sessions, we worked with the Bendix team to develop a series of personas for their core audience groups, identifying their motivations and interaction points with the brand.

User research and usability testing

To add to the persona insights the Bendix team provided, we conducted a series of research sessions with users from across Bendix’s three core audience groups: workshops, wholesalers, and hobbyists.

We interviewed participants about their experience with and perceptions of the Bendix brand, as well as their perceptions of competitor brands. A key part of this research enquiry was gaining an understanding of the participant’s current process when searching for a specific car part, and their insights and experiences (whether with Bendix or competitors) went on to inform recommendations for Bendix’s own website catalogue.

Participants were also asked to perform a number of tasks on the Bendix website, to gain feedback on existing functionality and usability. The insights gained from these sessions were then distilled into a series of UX, design, and content recommendations for the optimisation of the Bendix website.

Turning insights into actionable recommendations

Using the insights collated from the research activities and stakeholder workshops, we developed user journeys that reflected the processes, interaction points, actions, and emotions that Bendix’s key audience groups experience when interacting with the website, as well as opportunities for Bendix to improve this experience at various points in the journey.

We also developed an extensive website strategy that took into account Bendix’s broader business objectives and outlined the ways in which the website will support and contribute to the business over the medium to long term. This strategy included guidelines for homepage design, creative concepts, and the structure of site content, as well as guidelines for accessibility, SEO, and campaign optimisation.

A website that evolves with the business

With a solid website strategy in place, and a more comprehensive understanding of Bendix’s audience groups, we have subsequently rolled out updates to the site’s information architecture, navigation, and homepage design. These updates contribute to the ongoing evolution of the Bendix brand, and ensure that the website continues to add value to Bendix’s overall business strategy and operations.

The website strategy and journey optimisations completed through this project have established a solid foundation paving the way for an ongoing roadmap of work that will evolve alongside the business and ensure the website continues to serve and support Bendix’s broader goals and objectives.