Insight on user experience: Car rental experience

Last week, as I was driving out of the rental car garage at Minneapolis airport I realized that I did not like the car I had just rented. The windows were getting foggy, it was 36 F and I was still trying to figure out how the vent-control-knob worked. The knob that I found [image 1] was different from what I was used to [image 2]. It had icons on top, instead of around it. It could be pressed and rotated while I was used to only rotating it and it was split in between making me wonder if I needed to be press both sides of it. I tried different permutations and combinations but windows did not clear up. So I decided to roll them down a bit. This was not the interaction I had anticipated. Mentally I had Xed the check box for renting this car again.

Image 1 – Rental car		Image 2 – Current car

Switching between my user and experience-designer hats I realized that as a user, I did not know what my critical tasks were or should have been that day. I had walked out of the rental car office to stall #404, opened the door, secured my portable navigation system, adjusted the mirrors and was ready to go. Adjusting the air-conditioning did not occur as a critical task. Maybe traveling from a warmer climate had something to do with it.

This experience made me wonder if the issues I faced could have been uncovered during an interview prior to the incident especially since I did not know what I was getting into. I speculated if I would have retained the details of the incident and thus doubted the extent to which they could be uncovered during an interview after the incident. It solidified my conviction in using contextual inquires and observation to uncover key scenarios and consequently design better user experiences.