A smarter way
to choose a car.

Researching a car means jumping between YouTube reviews, dealership listings, insurance estimates, maintenance forums, Reddit threads and budget calculators. Each one answers a piece of the question. None of them connect it to the buyer’s actual situation.

People aren’t just asking “Is this a good car?” They’re asking “Is this a good car for my life?”

Most automotive sites are built to sell a specific car. I wanted to explore what it would look like if the platform was on the buyer’s side first: starting from their budget and needs, being honest about trade-offs, and only asking for contact details once it had earned them.

Before designing screens, I defined the factors the product had to reason about. These became the structure for the quiz, the score and the content.

Instead of asking people to already know what they want, the quiz asks what they do know: budget range, how and where they drive, winter needs and how long they plan to own the car. Ten short questions, one per screen, with a visible progress bar.

Results show three matches, not thirty. Each match pairs the score with a typical monthly ownership cost and a Red Flags line (“Smaller cargo area”, “Road noise on highway”). Showing the downsides up front was a deliberate trust decision: a buyer-first product has to say what a dealer wouldn’t.

A single “87/100” asks for blind trust. CrunchScore breaks every recommendation into five pillars (financial reality, reliability, lifestyle fit, usage fit and resale strength) with a bar for each, so the buyer can see why a car ranks where it does and which trade-off they’re accepting.

Plain labels (“Smart Buy”, “Buy With Confidence”) sit next to the number for people who just want the verdict.

People don’t search for a quiz. They search “best winter cars in Canada” or “family SUVs under $30k”. I designed a content layer of intent-based guides that answer those questions and then hand off to the quiz, so research turns into a personal shortlist instead of another open tab.

Deep navy with a single electric blue (#2563EB) for actions, Inter for clarity, and modular cards so dense information stays scannable. The aim was to feel sharper than a dealership site without losing the calm a high-cost decision needs. Everything was designed mobile-first.

The intended flow is discover → learn → decide → engage. The email capture (a Smart Buyer Starter Guide) only appears after the buyer has received value, so anyone who opts in arrives with more context and clearer intent.