Capital One Dealer
Transforming the process of how Dealer Agreements Teams add an agreement between Capital One and a dealership — migrating from Salesforce into an internal platform, Dealer 360.
Role
UX Design Intern
Timeline
Summer 2024
Team
Dealer 360 / DCIS Salesforce Transform
Overview
Context
The Dealer Agreements Team (DAT) at Capital One manages the complex process of adding agreements between Capital One and car dealerships. The process relied heavily on Salesforce — a system with fragmented steps, manual data entry, cross-platform context switching, and back-and-forth email communication. This created significant inefficiency and cognitive burden for lenders.
My Goal
Transform the Salesforce-based dealer agreement process into a streamlined experience within Dealer 360, Capital One's internal platform. The goal was to maintain familiarity for existing users while reducing pain points, improving efficiency, and increasing usability — across the Business, Agreements, and Finance steps of the flow.
My Impact
Led end-to-end design from research and journey mapping through wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing with the Dealer Agreements Team.
Conducted usability testing with 3 DAT lenders, surfacing actionable insights that directly shaped the final design concept recommendations.
Designed user interface experiences that reduced step count and earned positive feedback from users who called the interface "very user friendly."
This design work is subject to NDA. Ideas below are not shared for access.
View full case study here
(NDA Protected)
Research
The DAT process was fragmented across multiple platforms, creating significant pain points at every step.
To understand the full scope of the problem, I analyzed the DAT process from start to finish — documenting user milestones, the platforms involved, and every step required. A journey map allowed me to understand key pain point categories surrounding manual processes, delays with stakeholder response and fragmented processes. Deeper analysis surfaced additional issues due to complex heavy milestones throughout the process.
Process
The Dealership
Manual processes
Process
Fragmentation
Stakeholder Delay
The Dealer Agreements Team
Insights
Ideation revealed one step within the process that was the most complex to redesign — requiring prioritization and close collaboration.
After translating the current milestone flow I was focused on into low-fidelity wireframes, I collaborated with engineering to empathize with the backend constraints. Iterative ideation across process milestone steps surfaced clear directions. 2 out of 3 had simpler redesigns, whereas the platform I was focused on required deeper ideation due to its dependency on "working with the system" rather than it working for them.
01 Prioritize usability and readability while maintaining consistency with the existing platform mental model.
02 Group similar tasks into the same page while maintaining logical categories — reduce context switching.
03 Eliminate the need to manually input the same information for different purposes.
04 Problem platform flow redesign preferred the 2-page approach due to a major reduction in steps.
User and engineering feedback on the agreement flow also identified key additions that allowed for advanced development that was feasible.
How might we...
Transform the problem platform within dealer agreement process into a faster, more intuitive experience that reduces manual work and lets lenders focus on what matters?
Usability · Testing
Overall, users were pleased with the interface and found it very user friendly.
3 lenders from the Dealer Agreements Team participated in think-aloud usability testing across key stages of the prototype. Overall, participants found the core workflows intuitive and aligned with their primary tasks. This led my recommendations to surround supporting familiar information layouts and designs that built on existing ways of working and opportunities to improve information review, navigation, and supporting features such as note-taking, categorization, and search.
Reflection
Key Takeaways
01 The design process is not linear — and that's the point
The process has purpose, and what's critical is understanding why each phase exists. Jumping between research, ideation, user feedback, and engineering constraints wasn't a sign of disorder — it was the process working as intended, surfacing richer and more defensible decisions at each turn.
02 There will never be a design that is an "end all, be all"
Every design decision opened new questions and revealed new constraints. Learning to treat the prototype as a living artifact — not a finished product — helped me stay open to feedback and iterate with intention rather than attachment.
03 Communication, relationships, and teamwork are the foundation of great design
The most valuable work happened in conversations — with engineers, lenders, and stakeholders. Learning to ask better questions, communicate design rationale clearly, and build trust across disciplines made the designs themselves stronger and more likely to be built.
The stunning C1 HQ
Team bonding w/ PM interns @ Topgolf (I was the only UX intern that summer :'))
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