VEME
I worked on the Vehicle Exchange Made Easy (VEME) platform, focusing on creating secure, multi-party vehicle transactions. The project involved mapping cross-channel user journeys, shaping payment and exchange flows, and collaborating with both product and development teams to ensure the experience was scalable and investment-ready.
Product Designer
Vehicle Exchange Made Easy (VEME)
8 Weeks
B2C & B2B Web App Responsive
Challenge
The VEME idea needed to support a complex, multi-party vehicle exchange process where payment, contract signing, and registration transfer were all connected—but often handled by different users, lenders, and government systems. We needed to design workflows where users could easily see progress, understand what’s required of them, and track who had completed each step—without losing privacy or overwhelming them with system details.
The primary goal for this phase was to create investor-ready prototypes that would showcase a credible, scalable solution, even though some features would need to be delivered in leaner phases post-funding.
Results
The client walked away with:
Multiple investor-ready prototypes covering seller, buyer, and lender flows
Cross-channel journey maps
Proto-personas and feature prioritisation maps
A polished brand and marketing website
This was always positioned as a first-phase solution to unlock investor buy-in and future product development.
We worked with the development team to ensure the proposed solution was technically achievable, even if some features would need to be delivered through leaner workarounds in the initial launch.
My Approach
We started with a very high-level user flow provided by the client—they knew users would need to create an account, add vehicle details, determine if they were a buyer or seller, invite the other party, verify identities, and create a contract. But beyond this basic outline, the full journey was still undefined.
I worked closely with the client to unpack and build out this journey in detail through a series of collaborative workshops.
In the early experience map, I introduced a CX Funnel swim lane (Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Action) to help us map how users would discover and enter the product. This opened valuable conversations about acquisition strategies, existing marketing efforts, and gaps in customer onboarding. It helped frame the product as part of a broader customer experience—not just a transactional tool.
As the MVP experience started to take shape, we actively involved developers to discuss third-party solutions that would integrate with the product, including payment platforms, verification services, and government systems. We worked closely to understand:
Whether third-party solutions would require users to leave the platform.
Which integrations would be seamless or potentially introduce friction.
We also supported the brand and product launch. While we didn’t own the marketing execution, I co-led workshops to define the brand identity, product tone, and name (I named the platform—a small but proud flex). We used the Value Proposition Canvas to help position the product for both user and investor appeal.
What I did:
Facilitated lean discovery workshops focusing on user journey mapping, cross-channel flows, and feature prioritisation.
Designed collaborative journey maps in Miro that covered buyer, seller, lender, and system actions.
Included a CX Funnel swim lane to surface acquisition touchpoints and pre-product awareness gaps.
Designed key product experiences including editable agreements, payment status tracking, finance disclosure flows, and inclusive ownership identification.
Co-facilitated brand and naming workshops, co-creating the product tone and positioning with the client.
Worked closely with developers to explore how third-party solutions would integrate into the flow and whether they would interrupt or complement the user journey.
Selected a lightweight design system to support rapid iteration while ensuring mobile responsiveness and basic accessibility.
The Solution
The final solution supported multi-party vehicle exchanges with real-time payment status tracking, editable contracts, lender involvement, and privacy-preserving flows.
We created multiple prototypes tailored to buyers, sellers, and lenders that the client could present to investors and partners. While some complex features weren’t guaranteed for the first MVP build, we scoped every feature so that a version of it could be delivered in early phases—balancing ambition with feasibility.
Reflection
This project revealed how many potential drop-off points exist in multi-party transactions. While we conducted desktop research into trust and willingness to use a third-party platform, the model still relied on both buyers and sellers being active on VEO at the same time—a potential adoption risk.
There’s also a significant behaviour gap: users don’t always understand that having a contract in place is what finalises and protects the exchange. Without strong product education, users might choose to bypass VEME and complete the transaction independently, especially when existing solutions like CarSales feel simpler upfront.
At the time, our focus was on getting investor-ready prototypes, and formal user testing wasn’t part of this phase. However, I would strongly recommend usability testing to validate whether this platform could overcome trust and education barriers. This solution needs to be tested to see whether the flow, language, and value proposition are strong enough to encourage users to complete the full process.
In hindsight, if I’d had the Martech awareness I now have, I would have started thinking earlier about where key tracking events could have shaped future personalisation, education touchpoints, and system-driven nudges. This is exactly where I want to continue growing—designing experiences with customer data platforms, system triggers, and cross-channel journeys in mind.