Reimagining how dealerships manage and move inventory.
I led end-to-end design for Toolbox, defining workflows and core features across web and mobile. The redesigned experience streamlined dealership operations and helped drive a 33% increase in customers pre-launch.
My Role
Sole Product Designer — Research & Discovery, Information Architecture, Product Strategy, UX Design, Design Systems, Handoff, Design QC
Team
Jordan Detota (Design Manager), Eduard Sindiukov (PM), Kevin To (QA), 15+ SWE's
Company
Ikon Technologies
Timeline
6 Months
Opportunity
Revamping an obsolete platform to drive engagement, efficiency, and scalable growth.
Ikon Technologies' obsolete inventory management system was barely meeting the basic needs of its users at the car dealership, leaving them frustrated and overly reliant on customer support to perform basic operations. This situation prompted many challenging conversations around user experience. We wanted the new Toolbox to not only address the current pain points but also to enhance the overall dealership experience. Our key business goals were to:
Strengthen the value proposition of Ikon's core products.
Improve usability and engagement, increasing active usage from under 3% of the total user base.
Optimize operations to minimize support requests and reduce overhead costs.
Toolbox; before and after
Research
Uncovering what dealerships truly care about.
Ikon Technologies was founded by and employs a significant number of former auto dealers who experienced these challenges firsthand and joined the company to help solve them. These individuals proved to be indispensable assets in understanding the problem, the users, and the industry and we leaned on their expertise at every step of the way.
In addition to our own internal experts, we also relied on input and feedback from staff at local dealerships to get some unbiased opinions. These included general managers, sales managers, salespeople, and more. Through the process we also sought feedback from customer support and field operations team members.
Key focus questions:
What are the challenges or barriers with the current app use & adoption?
What does a "sales pitch" for Toolbox sound like?
What sorts of users at the dealership would have the most usage and benefit from our system?
Do small and large-scale dealerships have different needs when it comes to inventory management? If so, how do these differences manifest in day-to-day operations?
Problem
Dealers struggle with slow sales, growing theft risks, and an overload of fragmented tools.
Through industry insights and conversations with customers and stakeholders we identified key problem areas to focus on:
1. Inefficient Sales Process
Dealer customers were frustrated about the amount of time it took to purchase a vehicle. A good chunk of time was wasted while the salesperson was busy searching for the key and even the vehicle!
2. Vehicle Theft and Fraud
Dealers regularly have vehicles stolen off of their lot or purchased under fraudulent conditions. Finding and recovering the vehicle as quick as possible is key to keeping business moving.
3. Too Many Tools
Dealers and their employees are inundated with different vendors, tools, and services. It's our goal not to become more noise to those benefitting from our products.
Information Architecture
Platform-specific architecture designed for different use cases
The primary feature set was mapped out at a high level for both the mobile and web app versions, showing how the overall structure of the app connected and the differences between the two versions.
The mobile experience catered primarily to those employees that work the lot and interact with customers. These users are typically salespeople, lot attendants, technicians, and similar roles. The features we focused on delivering first were finding and pairing vehicles and keys.
Mobile app architecture
For an MVP release, we focused on building features for each platform based on the most common users and use cases. For the web platform, our users were primarily manager types who were behind desks for most of the day and not out walking the lot. Their primary features were administrative and tracking.
Web app architecture
Solution
Toolbox — Managing cars, keys, and sales in one place.
With a solid understanding of the needs of the platform and each feature we set out to design the product experience. Below are a few of the core features from Toolbox:
Inventory map view that helps dealership staff quickly locate vehicles and their corresponding keys across the lot.
From L to R: inventory list view, map view, vehicle details, CARFAX report.
From L to R: pairing page, scanning flow modal, vehicle pairing details, device pairing status.
Configurations page to let user set custom values for lot age ranges, battery threshold.
Device page for Ikon employees designed to monitor device health and troubleshoot performance in real time.
Settings page for Ikon employees to customize preference — including app theming, appointment staff assignments, and individual dealer configurations.
Impact
Toolbox pre-launch drove a 33% surge in dealership customers.
The rollout of Toolbox will begin in Q2 2025. As part of pre-release sales efforts, Toolbox helped successfully secure over 139 new dealership customers, roughly a 33% increase in customer base.
Toolbox marks the transformation to a modern era of inventory management for dealerships. Of the testing and feedback we have received, nearly all of it has been positive and full of excitement. Constructive pieces of feedback we've received have been taken in to be reviewed for improvements in later releases. Overall, everyone is eager for Toolbox to be introduced to the world!
Toolbox was showcased at the 2025 NADA automotive tradeshow in New Orleans, securing dozens of new dealer sign ups.
Reflections
Hard truths from the dealership floor and the road ahead.
The auto industry is fast-paced, where every minute counts and money drives decisions. This makes research challenging, as dealers often don't see the value in offering their time unless there's an immediate financial return, even if it improves efficiency or satisfaction. This only highlighted further the distrust and negativity consumers feel toward the industry, which we aimed to address with our other product, Connect.
Looking ahead:
The MVP of Toolbox laid the groundwork for an intelligent platform that helps dealers manage one of their most critical operations.
It set the stage for advanced features such as test drive and pre-inspection analytics, competitive dashboards, and device-free inventory tracking.
To meet our tight launch timeline, we prioritized platform-specific features, with a plan to later unify the desktop and mobile experiences for a seamless workflow across all tasks and information.
More work, more stories.
