Enterprise Rent-a-Car Web Site Review

The Enterprise rent-a-car Web site is a good example of a performance-centered design. The design illustrates how a simple and relatively uncluttered design can help people quickly achieve their goal of reserving a rental car. Some people may tend to believe that a performance centered system or EPSS has lots of supporting elements; like online help, tool tips, animated demonstrations, etc. The Enterprise illustrates that these types of support elements are not always necessary and in some situations can be distracting. 

While reading this review you may want to open the Enterprise Web site in another browser window so you can switch back and forth from the site to this review. The URL for the site is http://www.enterprise.com

The first thing you will notice about the main page is the very prominent elements to start the process of finding rates and reserving a car. One group of elements let you to select an airport and the other lets you find an Enterprise rental location by city name, postal code or phone number. It appears that Enterprise recognizes it has two types of customers; those that will rent a car at an airport and those that rent a car from a location close to their home or current place of residence. Making this distinction at the very beginning of the process simplifies the steps required for each type of customer. 

Let's take a look at what happens if you want to rent a car at an airport. Pick Chicago O'Hare from the airport dropdown list and click Go.  The next page lets you choose the start and end dates for the rental period. Notice that the gray banner just below the company logo shows the steps in the process. One of the very nice features of this page is the calendar. This makes it easier to confirm your date selection. The page also displays the office hours; although in this case the office hours do not match the hours in the dropdown list. If one selects a time outside of the office hours the system displays an error message. This is definitely a design flaw that one should try of avoid. 

Select a time and click Next. The select a car page is very simple. It shows the category of vehicles and examples of the types of vehicles in each category. A person can choose to view more details about the cars. The pages supports the frequent user who is familiar with the vehicle categories, but is also lets the infrequent user find more information about the vehicles. 

Choose a standard vehicle and click Next. The Rates page contains a picture of one of the types of vehicles in the selected category as well as pictures of vehicles in higher categories.  This presentation lets a customer easily upgrade if they feel they can afford the higher charges. The page also has a clear breakdown of the of the cost of the rental. The next page is where you enter your phone number and contact information. 

Click the Home link to go back to the main page. Enter your telephone number in the second set of elements and click Go. This page shows a list of the rental office near you home and the distance from you home to the office.  You can choose to view a map to find the exact location. Unfortunately if you do not click the telephone radio button the system is not intelligent enough to interpret the number. Instead it displays a error message page that does not contain the number you entered on the first page. 

While the Enterprise rent-a-car site may lack some deeper intelligence and sophisticated error handling, its basic design is very solid. It does a very good job of simplifying the reservations process for both the infrequent and frequent user.