Client
RAC
Project
E-commerce optimisation
Deliverables
UX Research
UI Design
Mobile
E-commerce
InteractionDesign
Sprints
Tailor-made cover
RAC is one of the UK’s largest breakdown and recovery businesses, offering security and peace of mind to millions of customers across the country.
The brief
Improve mobile checkout completion from 85% to 95% — a clear, measurable target for a journey that millions of customers rely on when they need it most.
My role
Lead UX/UI Designer, working as part of a multidisciplinary team at cxpartners alongside a UX Researcher, developers and project managers. Senior RAC stakeholders were present and involved throughout, participating in research sessions and design reviews.
We established clear user testing objectives from the outset, focusing on three areas: understanding how customers research and purchase breakdown cover, identifying where they were dropping off in the current journey, and prioritising improvements to the landing page, offer presentation and payment flow.
Analytics told an interesting story. The majority of users who dropped off did so before answering the first question — but those who started almost always completed the journey. The problem was not the checkout itself. It was the threshold moment before it.
Digging deeper through focus groups and usability testing, a consistent pattern emerged. Users were regularly clicking “More info” at the very first step, unsure what they were being asked to do and what they were committing to. When asked to explain what they had added to their basket and why, many could not. The language and terminology around coverage options was creating genuine confusion — and confusion was killing conversion.
The real problem was not usability. It was trust.
With the insight clear, the design approach centred on language, tone and reassurance rather than interface restructuring. Key changes included:
Making explicit that starting the process implied no commitment — addressing the hesitation of users who just wanted a quick quote before they’d even begun.
Introducing reassuring messaging at every stage of the journey, encouraging users forward rather than leaving them to second-guess their choices.
Surfacing statistics about RAC’s scale and operation to build confidence at the point of decision.
Simplifying the presentation of coverage options so users could understand exactly what they were buying and why
Throughout the sprint, regular research sessions and findings workshops allowed the team to validate designs, identify issues and iterate before producing the next prototype. Several “read more” sections that were opening into lengthy scrollable content on mobile were significantly condensed, removing a key friction point for mobile users.
The result was a checkout experience where users felt informed, reassured and in control — knowing exactly what they were buying and what it would cost at every step.
Outcome
Checkout completion on mobile rose from 85% to 95%, meeting the client’s target. The success of the mobile sprint directly informed a subsequent desktop sprint, where a similar but adapted approach was applied — a strong signal that the design thinking behind the solution was sound and transferable.
Additionally, by altering the tone of voice and addressing some more technical issues, the challenge of achieving a 95% checkout to completion target was met and subsequently, further sprints were made on the desktop views.
