Overview of the auto.ru mobile application for the Android platform
We are continuing a series of reviews of the Android application interfaces, prepared jointly with UsabilityLab . Read the previous review of the series here .
The auto.ru application allows you to view materials from the portal of the same name from your smartphone. So, using the application, you can search and view ads for the sale of cars and motorcycles, as well as add individual ads or search queries to Favorites. In addition, the application has the ability to read articles about test drives, reviews about certain models, news of the automotive world and leave your comments.
Users generally positively appreciate the functionality of the application, but at the same time pay attention in their comments to the lack of some features. For example, Anton Kirillov , commenting on an application on Google Play, notes the most popular of these functions:
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The application is executed very succinctly both in terms of structure and content. It contains only a few sections that are not overloaded with functionality.
However, when working with the application, there are several main problems:
In addition, users familiar with the capabilities of the site, make the following suggestions to the functionality of the application:
Turning to the application for the first time, the user sees the splash screen with the auto.ru site logo. This screen is replaced by the main, where all sections of the application - “Cars” and “Motorcycles” (announcements for sale), “Favorites”, “Reviews”, “Test Drives”, and “News” are placed.
Behind the first two sections there are hidden fields with the help of which the user can set the search parameters with the results of issuing on them, or individual vehicle cards from the search results. "Reviews" and "Test Drives" contain articles about specific car models. The last section contains the latest news on automotive topics.
The main task of the auto.ru application is to search for ads. At the moment, it implemented a search for cars and motorcycles.
Accordingly, when going to the “Cars” section, the user immediately goes to the filter, where he can set such parameters for the search for ads as “city of placement”, “brand” and “car model”, “price”, “year of production”, “mileage "," State "," customs ", select the type of gearbox, steering, body, engine characteristics, as well as select the seller, the time of ad placement and adjust the display of ads with photos. When selecting ads for motorcycles, the filter also contains specific parameters, such as the location of cylinders and the number of strokes.
Users themselves note that for a full-fledged selection of a car, they lack some options for selecting a complete set, which, for example, are in the filter on the site auto.ru. The most critical of them - the color of the car and the number of owners on the vehicle passport - it would be logical to put in the application. The second option is to take out all the parameters of a complete set, hiding them under the button “Additional options”, as it is implemented when selecting motorcycles.
It is worth noting that the filter contains quite relevant drop-down lists for most fields (“make and model”, “state”, “customs”, etc.). But when choosing parameters such as “year of manufacture”, “mileage”, “engine volume and power”, it would be nice to add the ability to manually enter values ​​along with the choice of a range from the specified values. This will help the user, on the one hand, to quickly set the necessary values, and on the other - to set the parameters for filtering more clearly.
Another problem that a user may encounter when setting parameters for searching for ads is that you cannot include in the filter, for example, several cities, makes or models of cars, and body types. This possibility is not available on the site (with the exception of the multiple choice of regions), however, it could make the search more convenient. The user would not need to filter ads several times by different combinations.
Referring to the individual filtering options, we will focus on choosing the region and brand of car. So, the regions are not sorted in the most obvious way - alphabetically within federal districts. It is more convenient to place the administrative units in the list strictly alphabetically.
In the catalog of car brands, firstly, mistakes were made in the names - for example, “Mer s edes-Benz”, “Po rsh e” (instead of “Mercedes-Benz” and “Porsche”), and, secondly, brands of trucks, and they are not yet in the application.
Finally, the search results do not indicate in which city the ad is located. This can be critical if the user has specified the whole of Russia for searching, or the region is quite extensive and the distances between cities are large.
Users of the auto.ru application in their reviews say that in cases of price changes or loss of relevance of an ad added to favorites, this is not reflected in the system. Because of this, the following situation may arise. The user liked the car, and he added her card to the "Favorites". After some time, the owner sold the car, and the ad disappeared from the site, but remained in the "Chosen" in the application.
If such a problem really exists (it was not revealed during testing), then announcements that have lost their relevance should be noted. It is not recommended to delete them automatically from the “Favorites”, because the user will not understand exactly what happened to them and why they disappeared.
Another part of the application functionality is related to the reading of various articles about individual car models. It is presented in the sections “Reviews” and “Test Drives”.
The first one contains user articles about authors' cars, the second one contains reviews of professional journalists. In the first section, you can find articles related to a certain brand and even a model, selecting them from the list, in the second search is not provided at all. Although here it is also important, because these are often articles about new products, or comparative tests that can help determine the choice of car. Search here can be organized in the same way as in the "Reviews" section - by section, brand and model.
However, it is worth noting that when searching in the "Reviews" section it can be difficult to determine the category - the list includes “Moto and others” and “Motorcycles”, “Water” and “Boats and yachts” separately. It would be more convenient to have a catalog with the most popular modes of transport - cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles - at the beginning and other unambiguous types and subtypes of transport then.
The developers of auto.ru presented quite a high-quality and convenient application that allows you to search for cars and read about cars. Simple control allows you to quickly get comfortable, and extensive content attracts not only potential buyers, but also to motorists in general.
Without regard to the functional, we can note the strong similarity of the application under consideration in the style of design with the application for iOS. This concerns the appearance of input fields and action buttons, range selection tools, as well as the location of some buttons in the interface. Ideally, all interface elements should follow the Android style guide .
In general, the application makes a good impression, and the elimination of minor shortcomings in the short term and the expansion of functionality in the future will help make it even more popular with users.
Developers Relations Team, Google Russia
About the application
The auto.ru application allows you to view materials from the portal of the same name from your smartphone. So, using the application, you can search and view ads for the sale of cars and motorcycles, as well as add individual ads or search queries to Favorites. In addition, the application has the ability to read articles about test drives, reviews about certain models, news of the automotive world and leave your comments.
Users generally positively appreciate the functionality of the application, but at the same time pay attention in their comments to the lack of some features. For example, Anton Kirillov , commenting on an application on Google Play, notes the most popular of these functions:
“The application is very good and convenient, but: 1. Give the opportunity to choose the price of a car manually or reduce the range, 2. Make sure that the cars sold are removed from the favorites automatically, 3. You can’t see the number of hosts on the TCP. Thank!".Average user rating of the application - 4.0. Apparently, it turned out to be lowered due to a number of problems that had arisen in previous versions - the application does not detect all the ads posted on the site, and constantly “crashes”. However, when testing the current version, these problems did not manifest themselves.
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Briefly about the main thing
The application is executed very succinctly both in terms of structure and content. It contains only a few sections that are not overloaded with functionality.
However, when working with the application, there are several main problems:
- lack of ad filtering options: there are not enough criteria for “color”, “number of owners on TCP” and options related to bundling;
- lack of filtering by make and model in the section with test drives;
- the absence of any indicators in the "Favorite" ads that have lost relevance.
In addition, users familiar with the capabilities of the site, make the following suggestions to the functionality of the application:
- Add additional options for finding ads (in response to an already indicated problem);
- add the ability to publish ads for the sale of the vehicle;
- put in the application a separate section for commercial vehicles, as is done on the site.
Launching the application and the main screen
Turning to the application for the first time, the user sees the splash screen with the auto.ru site logo. This screen is replaced by the main, where all sections of the application - “Cars” and “Motorcycles” (announcements for sale), “Favorites”, “Reviews”, “Test Drives”, and “News” are placed.
Behind the first two sections there are hidden fields with the help of which the user can set the search parameters with the results of issuing on them, or individual vehicle cards from the search results. "Reviews" and "Test Drives" contain articles about specific car models. The last section contains the latest news on automotive topics.
Search ads
The main task of the auto.ru application is to search for ads. At the moment, it implemented a search for cars and motorcycles.
Accordingly, when going to the “Cars” section, the user immediately goes to the filter, where he can set such parameters for the search for ads as “city of placement”, “brand” and “car model”, “price”, “year of production”, “mileage "," State "," customs ", select the type of gearbox, steering, body, engine characteristics, as well as select the seller, the time of ad placement and adjust the display of ads with photos. When selecting ads for motorcycles, the filter also contains specific parameters, such as the location of cylinders and the number of strokes.
Users themselves note that for a full-fledged selection of a car, they lack some options for selecting a complete set, which, for example, are in the filter on the site auto.ru. The most critical of them - the color of the car and the number of owners on the vehicle passport - it would be logical to put in the application. The second option is to take out all the parameters of a complete set, hiding them under the button “Additional options”, as it is implemented when selecting motorcycles.
It is worth noting that the filter contains quite relevant drop-down lists for most fields (“make and model”, “state”, “customs”, etc.). But when choosing parameters such as “year of manufacture”, “mileage”, “engine volume and power”, it would be nice to add the ability to manually enter values ​​along with the choice of a range from the specified values. This will help the user, on the one hand, to quickly set the necessary values, and on the other - to set the parameters for filtering more clearly.
Another problem that a user may encounter when setting parameters for searching for ads is that you cannot include in the filter, for example, several cities, makes or models of cars, and body types. This possibility is not available on the site (with the exception of the multiple choice of regions), however, it could make the search more convenient. The user would not need to filter ads several times by different combinations.
Referring to the individual filtering options, we will focus on choosing the region and brand of car. So, the regions are not sorted in the most obvious way - alphabetically within federal districts. It is more convenient to place the administrative units in the list strictly alphabetically.
In the catalog of car brands, firstly, mistakes were made in the names - for example, “Mer s edes-Benz”, “Po rsh e” (instead of “Mercedes-Benz” and “Porsche”), and, secondly, brands of trucks, and they are not yet in the application.
Finally, the search results do not indicate in which city the ad is located. This can be critical if the user has specified the whole of Russia for searching, or the region is quite extensive and the distances between cities are large.
Information for developers
Problem | Criticality | Recommendation |
| There are no significant criteria in the filter - the number of owners on TCP, the color of the car, as well as the list of options for bundling. |  | Add to the filter the most significant characteristics (of the mandatory - "owners of TCP") and the configuration options for the button "Advanced Options". |
| There is no possibility of multiple choice of characteristics (for example, region, brand, model). | | Add the ability to select multiple characteristics when setting up a search. |
| In the search results there is no indication of the city of the car sale. | | Add an indication of the city of the ad in the search results. |
| In the catalog of brands there are names written with errors. |  | Check and change all the names of car makes and models to the correct ones. |
| Items in the list of published ad regions are sorted in a non-obvious way. | | Sort administrative units strictly alphabetically. |
| There is no possibility to manually enter the values ​​of some parameters or range limits (for example, year of manufacture, engine power, etc.) | | Add the ability to manually enter parameters. |
| In the catalog there are brands of trucks and buses. | | Remove from catalogs brands that are not available by default in the application at the moment (for example, Scania, Iveco). |
Favorites
Users of the auto.ru application in their reviews say that in cases of price changes or loss of relevance of an ad added to favorites, this is not reflected in the system. Because of this, the following situation may arise. The user liked the car, and he added her card to the "Favorites". After some time, the owner sold the car, and the ad disappeared from the site, but remained in the "Chosen" in the application.
If such a problem really exists (it was not revealed during testing), then announcements that have lost their relevance should be noted. It is not recommended to delete them automatically from the “Favorites”, because the user will not understand exactly what happened to them and why they disappeared.
Information for developers
Problem | Criticality | Recommendation |
| An ad that has lost its relevance remains unchanged in the “Favorites” section. | | Add indicators for the ads in your favorites, indicating the change and / or removal of this ad on the site (for example, icon, background color). |
View articles
Another part of the application functionality is related to the reading of various articles about individual car models. It is presented in the sections “Reviews” and “Test Drives”.
The first one contains user articles about authors' cars, the second one contains reviews of professional journalists. In the first section, you can find articles related to a certain brand and even a model, selecting them from the list, in the second search is not provided at all. Although here it is also important, because these are often articles about new products, or comparative tests that can help determine the choice of car. Search here can be organized in the same way as in the "Reviews" section - by section, brand and model.
However, it is worth noting that when searching in the "Reviews" section it can be difficult to determine the category - the list includes “Moto and others” and “Motorcycles”, “Water” and “Boats and yachts” separately. It would be more convenient to have a catalog with the most popular modes of transport - cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles - at the beginning and other unambiguous types and subtypes of transport then.
Information for developers
Problem | Criticality | Recommendation |
| In the "Test Drives" section there is no search function for articles related to a specific make or model of car. | | Add to the "Test Drives" section of the search function by vehicle category, make and model. |
| The list of vehicle categories in the “Search” section among the reviews contains non-obvious and duplicate elements. | | Create a catalog of vehicle categories with unambiguous views and subspecies (bring the most popular views to the top of the catalog). |
Oh good
The developers of auto.ru presented quite a high-quality and convenient application that allows you to search for cars and read about cars. Simple control allows you to quickly get comfortable, and extensive content attracts not only potential buyers, but also to motorists in general.
Design
Without regard to the functional, we can note the strong similarity of the application under consideration in the style of design with the application for iOS. This concerns the appearance of input fields and action buttons, range selection tools, as well as the location of some buttons in the interface. Ideally, all interface elements should follow the Android style guide .
Total
In general, the application makes a good impression, and the elimination of minor shortcomings in the short term and the expansion of functionality in the future will help make it even more popular with users.
Resume for developers: what to do first
Problem | Criticality |
| Add to the filter the most significant characteristics ("owners of TCP") and configuration options for the button "Additional Options". | |
| Add the ability to select multiple characteristics when setting up a search. | |
| Add an indication of the city of the ad in the search results. | |
| Add indicators for the ads in your favorites, indicating the change and / or removal of this ad on the site (for example, icon, background color). | |
| Add to the "Test Drives" section of the search function by vehicle category, make and model. | |
| Check and change all the names of car makes and models to the correct ones. | |
| Sort administrative units strictly alphabetically. | |
| Add the ability to manually enter parameters. | |
| Remove from catalogs brands that are not available by default in the application at the moment (for example, Scania, Iveco). | |
| Create a catalog of vehicle categories with unambiguous views and subspecies (bring the most popular views to the top of the catalog). | |
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/193072/
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