ID.Buzz Community
Making an online community the go-to source of information for ID.Buzz owners and fans
Client
Volkswagen Group
Role
Senior Product Designer
Timeline
10 Month Project
Team
Cross-functional (Product, Design, Engineering, Business Stakeholders)
Project Overview.
The ID.Buzz is more than just a car – it’s a cultural icon reimagined for the electric era. Our goal was to design a digital space that matched that energy: a place where owners and fans could come together, share stories, and stay connected to the brand and each other.
Business Goals.
Volkswagen wanted to build an official ID.Buzz community platform – a space where fans and owners could:
Connect and exchange tips, stories, and media
Get reliable, exclusive information directly from Volkswagen
Ask questions and engage with brand representatives
The idea was to foster authentic community engagement beyond traditional marketing.
01
Build a community of early adopters to drive long-term brand loyalty
02
Engage current owners to generate excitement and hype
04
Use the platform to ultimately support ID.Buzz sales
03
Attract potential customers with topic-driven content and social proof
Advocating for User Research.
When we joined the project, some initial research had already been done – but it was mostly focused on marketing and did not validate the proposed solution.
We pushed for deeper user research to better understand the why behind the need for a community. We did this by explaining what we still needed to find out:
Is there really a need for an exclusive ID.Buzz community?
What features are actually essential for MVP?
Is there a need for a native mobile app?
Technical Research.
We analyzed 16 community platforms and recommended two off-the-shelf options as efficient, cost-effective solutions.
However, due to limitations of the features available, user management and control over the user database, the team decided to move forward with a custom build.
User Interviews.
We benchmarked existing ID.Buzz communities and forums – and found they were thriving!
This proved something important: The desire to connect was already there. People were solving their own problems by creating unofficial spaces.
From this analysis, we identified potential user interviewees ranging from top community contributors to administrators.
We reached out to a total of 60 people, and managed to have 15 in-depth interviews over two weeks.
15
User interviews
9
ID.Buzz owners
35-70
Age range
6
ID.Buzz fans
We discovered why they were creating communities.
People love the ID.Buzz. But there are some problems with order delays and waiting periods, poor communication and lack of access to information. So, they created their own solutions to help each other and get relevant information.
Key Insights.
And discovered what they really need.
01
Single source of truth
Users want a centralised place for press releases, exclusive content and all technical information, instead of searching for information on different websites.
02
Trustworthy information
Community content should be moderated and supported by VW experts. Accurate info builds trust and trust keeps people coming back.
04
Smart navigation
Users have problems finding relevant information scrolling through posts. A well-organised navigation structure with categories, topic filtering, and universal search were essential.
03
Lively engagement
A community only thrives if people engage. Admins need tools to spark interaction – polls, quizzes, contests, and featured stories.
Ideation & Prioritisation.
With clear user insights in hand, we kicked off the next phase by running a collaborative inception workshop with our stakeholders. Together, we built out our key personas and translated our research findings into actionable Jobs to Be Done.
This gave us a shared understanding of what really mattered to our users and helped us make smarter decisions about what to build first.
We used this as the foundation for prioritising features for the MVP. Instead of trying to ship all 35 originally scoped features, we trimmed it down to a lean set of essentials that directly addressed user needs:
A homefeed for content and conversations
Topic-based exploration and smart search
Meaningful user profiles
Core interaction tools like posting, commenting, and reactions
User Personas.
The Solution.
Homefeed
How Might We foster a lively community exchange?
We focused on designing features that encourage interaction and cater to content creation such as: creating posts, adding images, adding comments, replying to comments, and reacting to posts.
Explore
How Might We enable users to find relevant content easily?
We implemented universal search, content categories, groups to follow specific topics, and an explore page to discover new content.
Profile
How Might We make an interesting user profile to foster exchange?
The community is open to both owners and fans of the ID.Buzz. Badges are used to identify types of users – owners and fans; community admins and top contributors.
Usability Tests.
We built a staging version of the app and conducted early tests with real users.
We gathered actionable feedback around:
Expected functionality and layout
Suggestions around post visibility and structure
Clear expectations for what “community” should feel like
This early feedback loop helped us refine quickly and build trust with users.
89%
Task pass rate
81.88
SUS Score
7/10
NPS Score
Key Outcomes.
01
Gained stakeholder trust
Our research-first approach helped shift stakeholder mindset and won their trust to focus on designing a truly user-centered product.
02
Reduced scope from 35 features to a focused MVP
We cut down the bloated feature list to only what mattered most to users without sacrificing impact. Future nice-to-haves were mapped and aligned with the product roadmap.
04
Shifted perception of our tech unit
The success of this project helped position our tech team as a strategic product partner, not just a delivery unit unlocking more collaboration opportunities with VW Commercial Vehicles.
03
Contributed to the design system
We worked closely with the VW design system team, introducing new components and improvements that now benefit other products across the ecosystem.