CatUsed app
Note: the arrangement for this project was subject to Caterpillar policies. I was not permitted to take outputs from this project for any reason; I no longer have access to the project files.
The Cat Used team at Caterpillar is responsible for marketing used equipment, helping buyers find sellers, with revenue potential through services such as remanufacturing and parts sales.
In the late 2000’s, new services were launched rapidly to respond to the growing demand of smartphone users. The ecosystem of technology available enabled businesses to launch quickly, often running away with the market share of long-standing companies unable to flex and iterate like these new lean underdogs. Consumers benefitted with multiple options available to perform almost any business related task. For example, a number of apps sat adjacent to eBay in the app stores that could just as easily (often more so) sell used “stuff.”
In the early 2010’s, this same evolution began taking hold in the BtoB realm. The Cat Used team learned of services springing up in the “eBay for construction equipment” space. To defend market share, the team elected to pursue an app for mobile and web.
This project launched in late 2016. I had worked at Caterpillar for 12 years, having recently left to join a startup and services company, ONEFIRE. The Cat Used team contracted ONEFIRE to lead the project from concept to high fidelity prototype and deliver developer ready files as a result.
Research
The Cat Used marketing team collected primary and secondary research of competitive services for several months prior to the project kickoff. Those findings were shared with ONEFIRE prior to the formal project kickoff, which was held in the form of a week long Design Thinking workshop.
Having extensive Caterpillar experience, I was designated the project lead. With the Cat Used team research in hand, I performed additional research with adjacent industries in the “sell my stuff” space. This provided potential insights for user flows from both the “sell my stuff” user and “buy used stuff” consumer.
Design Thinking
The 5-day design thinking workshop included members of the Cat Used team, members from the digital marketing team, and dealer personnel. The first few days were spent
Guiding the team through the Design Thinking process
Exercises in divergent and convergent thinking
Listing user types (i.e. buyer, seller), objects (i.e. listings, reviews, profiles, etc.), and the associated actions
Through the diversity of disciplines of those participating, the team worked through user journeys like: “As a seller I want to be able to upload a listing from my phone.” After exhausting the possibilities, I led the team to synthesize the dozens of journeys into a more manageable number of “like” activities, then prioritize by level of importance. The list of most important features defined the minimum viable product (MVP).
Design
After the MVP features were agreed upon the UI design began. Since I was the ONEFIRE team of 1, I suggested 1 week sprints culminating in weekly meetings with the workshop team. The project timeline;
Week 1 - design wireframes (Sketch)
Week 2 - design UI (Sketch)
Week 3 - construct high fidelity prototype (Marvel)
Lo-fi prototype of proposed CatUsed mobile app
This image is one piece approved to use for portfolio purposes. It represents the final project product which was delivered to the digital marketing team. There were improvements made from the low fidelity to high fidelity stage, mostly in the form of enhancements for accessibility.
Tools used for this project: