September 9, 2013 at 16:37Overview of the auto.ru mobile application for the Android platform
We continue the series of reviews of Android application interfaces, prepared jointly with UsabilityLab . Read the previous review from the series here .
Auto.ru application allows you to view the materials of the portal of the same name from a smartphone. So, using the application, you can search and browse ads for cars and motorcycles, as well as add individual ads or search queries to your Favorites. In addition, the application has the ability to read articles about test drives, reviews about specific models, automotive news and leave your comments.
Users generally positively evaluate 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 concise, 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, several main problems can be distinguished:
In addition, users familiar with the site’s capabilities express the following wishes for the application’s functionality:
Turning to the application for the first time, the user sees a splash screen with the logo of the site auto.ru. This screen is replaced by the main one, where all sections of the application are taken - “Cars” and “Motorcycles” (sales announcements), “Favorites”, “Reviews”, “Test drives”, “News”.
Behind the first two sections are the fields with which the user can set search parameters with the results for 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 automotive news.
The main objective of the auto.ru application is to search for ads for sale. At the moment, it implements a search for cars and motorcycles.
Accordingly, when going to the "Cars" section, the user immediately gets to the filter, where he can set such parameters for searching ads as "city of placement", "make" and "car model", "price", "year of manufacture", "mileage ”,“ Condition ”,“ customs ”, select the type of gearbox, steering wheel, bodywork, engine characteristics, as well as select the seller, the time the advertisement was placed and set up the display of announcements with photos. When selecting ads for the sale of motorcycles, the filter also contains specific parameters, for example, the location of the cylinders and the number of measures.
The users themselves note that for the full selection of the car they lack some options for choosing the configuration, 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 according to the vehicle passport - it would be logical to put in the application. The second option is to make all the configuration options, hiding them under the "Advanced Options" button, as it is implemented when selecting motorcycles.
It should be noted 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 choosing a range from the given values. This will help the user, on the one hand, to quickly set the necessary values, and on the other hand, more clearly set the parameters for filtering.
Another problem that a user may encounter when setting parameters for searching ads is that it is impossible to include, for example, several cities, makes or models of cars, body types. This feature is not available on the site (with the exception of multiple choice of regions), but could make the search more convenient. The user would not need to filter the ads several times for different combinations.
Turning to the individual filtering parameters, let us dwell on the choice of 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 arrange administrative units in the list strictly alphabetically.
In the catalog of car brands, firstly, there were mistakes in the names - for example, “Mer sedes-Benz ”,“ Po rsh e ”(instead of“ Mercedes-Benz ”and“ Porsche ”), and secondly, there are brands of trucks, but they are not yet presented in the appendix.
Finally, the search results do not indicate in which city the ad is placed. This can be critical if the user specified the whole of Russia to search, or the region is quite vast 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 occur. 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 "Favorites" in the application.
If such a problem really exists (it was not identified during testing), then those announcements that have lost their relevance should be noted. It is not recommended to delete them automatically from the “Favorite”, because the user will not understand what exactly happened to them, and why they disappeared.
Another part of the application’s functionality is related to reading various articles about individual car models. It is presented in the sections "Reviews" and "Test drives."
The first contains user articles about the cars of authors, the second contains reviews of professional journalists. In the first section, you can find articles related to a particular brand and even a model by selecting them from the list, in the second there is no search at all. Although here it is also important, because it is 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, make and model.
However, it is worth noting that when searching in the "Reviews" section, it can be difficult to determine the category - the list contains separately "Moto and Others" and "Motorcycles", "Water" and "Boats and Yachts". It would be more convenient here to have a catalog with the most popular modes of transport - cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles - at the beginning and other unambiguous modes and subspecies of transport then.
Auto.ru developers presented a completely high-quality and convenient application that allows you to search for cars and read about cars. Simple management allows you to quickly get used to it, and the extensive content attracts not only potential buyers, but also motorists in general.
Without touching on the functionality, we can note a strong similarity between the application in question in the design style and the application for iOS. This applies to 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 Android style guides .
In general, the application makes a good impression, and the elimination of minor bugs in the near future and the expansion of functionality in the future will help make it even more popular among users.
Developers Relations Team, Google Russia
About app
Auto.ru application allows you to view the materials of the portal of the same name from a smartphone. So, using the application, you can search and browse ads for cars and motorcycles, as well as add individual ads or search queries to your Favorites. In addition, the application has the ability to read articles about test drives, reviews about specific models, automotive news and leave your comments.
Users generally positively evaluate 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 sold cars are removed from the favorites automatically, 3. The number of hosts on the TCP is not visible. Thanks!".Users rate the app average 4.0. Apparently, it turned out to be reduced due to a number of problems that occurred 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.
Briefly about the main thing
The application is very concise, 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, several main problems can be distinguished:
- lack of filtering options for ads: there are not enough criteria for “color”, “number of owners by title” and options related to configuration;
- lack of filtering by make and model in the section with test drives;
- the absence of any indicators in the "Favorites" of ads that have lost relevance.
In addition, users familiar with the site’s capabilities express the following wishes for the application’s functionality:
- add additional search parameters for ads (in response to an already identified problem);
- add the ability to publish vehicle sales announcements;
- 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 a splash screen with the logo of the site auto.ru. This screen is replaced by the main one, where all sections of the application are taken - “Cars” and “Motorcycles” (sales announcements), “Favorites”, “Reviews”, “Test drives”, “News”.
Behind the first two sections are the fields with which the user can set search parameters with the results for 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 automotive news.
Search Ads
The main objective of the auto.ru application is to search for ads for sale. At the moment, it implements a search for cars and motorcycles.
Accordingly, when going to the "Cars" section, the user immediately gets to the filter, where he can set such parameters for searching ads as "city of placement", "make" and "car model", "price", "year of manufacture", "mileage ”,“ Condition ”,“ customs ”, select the type of gearbox, steering wheel, bodywork, engine characteristics, as well as select the seller, the time the advertisement was placed and set up the display of announcements with photos. When selecting ads for the sale of motorcycles, the filter also contains specific parameters, for example, the location of the cylinders and the number of measures.
The users themselves note that for the full selection of the car they lack some options for choosing the configuration, 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 according to the vehicle passport - it would be logical to put in the application. The second option is to make all the configuration options, hiding them under the "Advanced Options" button, as it is implemented when selecting motorcycles.
It should be noted 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 choosing a range from the given values. This will help the user, on the one hand, to quickly set the necessary values, and on the other hand, more clearly set the parameters for filtering.
Another problem that a user may encounter when setting parameters for searching ads is that it is impossible to include, for example, several cities, makes or models of cars, body types. This feature is not available on the site (with the exception of multiple choice of regions), but could make the search more convenient. The user would not need to filter the ads several times for different combinations.
Turning to the individual filtering parameters, let us dwell on the choice of 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 arrange administrative units in the list strictly alphabetically.
In the catalog of car brands, firstly, there were mistakes in the names - for example, “Mer sedes-Benz ”,“ Po rsh e ”(instead of“ Mercedes-Benz ”and“ Porsche ”), and secondly, there are brands of trucks, but they are not yet presented in the appendix.
Finally, the search results do not indicate in which city the ad is placed. This can be critical if the user specified the whole of Russia to search, or the region is quite vast and the distances between cities are large.
Developer Information
Problem | Criticality | Recommendation |
| There are no significant criteria in the filter - the number of owners by title, the color of the car, as well as a list of equipment options. |  | Add to the filter the most significant characteristics (from the mandatory - “owners by TCP”) and configuration options for the button “Additional 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. |
| There is no indication of the city selling the car in the search results. | | Add an indication of the city of the ad in the search results. |
| In the stamp catalog there are names written with errors. |  | Check and change all the names of makes and models of cars to the correct ones. |
| Items in the list of regions for publishing ads are sorted in an unobvious way. | | Sort administrative units strictly alphabetically. |
| There is no possibility to manually enter values of some parameters or range limits (for example, year of manufacture, engine power, etc.) | | Add the ability to manually enter parameters. |
| The catalog contains brands of trucks and buses. | | Remove brands from catalogs that are currently not available in the application at the moment (for example, Scania, Iveco). |
Favorite
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 occur. 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 "Favorites" in the application.
If such a problem really exists (it was not identified during testing), then those announcements that have lost their relevance should be noted. It is not recommended to delete them automatically from the “Favorite”, because the user will not understand what exactly happened to them, and why they disappeared.
Developer Information
Problem | Criticality | Recommendation |
| An ad that has lost its relevance remains unchanged in the Favorites section. | | Add indicators for ads in your favorites, indicating the change and / or removal of this announcement on the site (for example, icon, background color). |
Browse Articles
Another part of the application’s functionality is related to reading various articles about individual car models. It is presented in the sections "Reviews" and "Test drives."
The first contains user articles about the cars of authors, the second contains reviews of professional journalists. In the first section, you can find articles related to a particular brand and even a model by selecting them from the list, in the second there is no search at all. Although here it is also important, because it is 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, make and model.
However, it is worth noting that when searching in the "Reviews" section, it can be difficult to determine the category - the list contains separately "Moto and Others" and "Motorcycles", "Water" and "Boats and Yachts". It would be more convenient here to have a catalog with the most popular modes of transport - cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles - at the beginning and other unambiguous modes and subspecies of transport then.
Developer Information
Problem | Criticality | Recommendation |
| In the section "Test Drives" there is no search function for articles related to a particular make or model of car. | | Add the search function by vehicle category, make and model to the "Test Drives" section. |
| The list of vehicle categories in the Search section of the reviews contains non-obvious and duplicate elements. | | Create a catalog of vehicle categories with unique views and subspecies (put the most popular types at the top of the catalog). |
Oh good
Auto.ru developers presented a completely high-quality and convenient application that allows you to search for cars and read about cars. Simple management allows you to quickly get used to it, and the extensive content attracts not only potential buyers, but also motorists in general.
Design
Without touching on the functionality, we can note a strong similarity between the application in question in the design style and the application for iOS. This applies to 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 Android style guides .
Total
In general, the application makes a good impression, and the elimination of minor bugs in the near future and the expansion of functionality in the future will help make it even more popular among users.
Resume for developers: what to do first
Problem | Criticality |
| Add the most significant characteristics (“TCP owners”) and configuration options behind the “Advanced Options” button to the filter. | |
| 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 ads in your favorites, indicating the change and / or removal of this announcement on the site (for example, icon, background color). | |
| Add the search function by vehicle category, make and model to the "Test Drives" section. | |
| Check and change all the names of makes and models of cars to the correct ones. | |
| Sort administrative units strictly alphabetically. | |
| Add the ability to manually enter parameters. | |
| Remove brands from catalogs that are currently not available in the application at the moment (for example, Scania, Iveco). | |
| Create a catalog of vehicle categories with unique views and subspecies (put the most popular types at the top of the catalog). | |
