Redesigning the adverts app search journey
UX Tree Mentorship Programme
Mentor: Dave Jackson
February 2024 - May 2024
Overview
During a three month mentorship programme at the UX Tree, I undertook a self-directed case study, which involved identifying a UX issue within an existing product or service and developing a solution that would cater to the needs of a specific target audience.
Role
UX/UI designer through end-to-end process: discovery, usability testing, define, develop, wire-framing, design, prototyping.
Tools
Figma
FigJam
Notion
Dribbble
About the app
Adverts is an Irish community-based marketplace where individuals can browse for, buy and sell new or used items online.
Launched in 2006 by Boards.ie, Ireland’s largest community website
Over one million registered users
Approx. 200,000 ads placed every month
1.2 million visits monthly
(“About Adverts.ie,” n.d.)
About the feature
When searching and browsing items, the results are overwhelming due to a lack of signposting, large amounts of paid ad clutter and incomplete ads, and poor filtration options
Logistical information (i.e. collection, payment) is unclear upfront and completed in direct messages (DMs) hidden under the ‘my profile’ page, feeling hidden from users
Ambiguous signposting and outdated user interface (UI).
Goal
For this project, I looked at the Adverts purchasing journey, with the goals of:
Improving the customer experience (CX)
Increasing sale turnaround time
Removing time-consuming journey friction, and
Reducing scams within the platform.
Project Scope
The main constraint within this project was a strict timeline of 12 weeks with check-ins on progress at the end of each design process stage.
Other considerations of scope constraints include:
Resources for development, and
Budget for development.
Duration
Overall: 16 weeks
Decide: 1 week
Discovery: 3 weeks
Define & Develop: 6 weeks
Deliver: 6 weeks
Background
With limited housing options due to the accommodation climate in Dublin, moving has always felt difficult. In addition, being so far from home, finding a suitable apartment that feels like home is a high priority for me.
While furnished apartments are convenient, they tend to lack the personal touch of home. However, I didn’t want to make monetary investments in rented apartment decor. To bridge this gap, I turned to Adverts, a community-based marketplace, where I could buy and sell items to keep my apartments feeling just like home.
While this is my personal introduction to Adverts, users can buy and sell items of all kinds on the platform, making it one of the most popular online tools for second-hand buying and selling in Ireland. I believe changes are needed and important to Adverts in order to promote an easier process in sustainable second-hand shopping and allow for those looking to save money to do so without the time consumption currently needed for Adverts browsing.
Design Process
I used the Double Diamond design process throughout this projects, which provided a framework for approaching complex design challenges and guided the iterative and collaborative design process. It encouraged collaboration, empathy and a user-centric approach throughout my design journey.
1. Discovery
Goal
Explore user interactions and experiences with the existing journey from both experienced and new users.
Research Methodology
During the discovery phase, I conducted a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to allow myself to gather the most comprehensive understanding of Adverts and its users possible.
By combining qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, I was able to triangulate my findings, corroborating insights from different sources and ensuring a more robust understanding of user needs and behaviours.
Qualitative research included:
User interviews
Usability testing
User reviews
Competitor analysis
Heuristic evaluation
This type of research added value in giving context on the personas of who is using Adverts and why they’re using it.
Quantitative research included:
Survey (run through Typeform)
This type of research added value in giving context on how often Adverts is utilised by individuals, on what device types and what users like and dislike about the existing app.
Target audience
Sellers
Individuals and businesses interested in selling or giving away their products or services to a broad audience, leveraging the reach and convenience of Adverts.
These sellers can also be:
Environmentally conscious: Users who prefer to find a new life for their items, rather than throwing away salvageable items.
Fiscally conscious: Users who are looking to make back a bit of money paid for the item they’re selling.
Buyers
Individuals looking to purchase a wide range of items, through an online marketplace platform.
These buyers can also be:
Bargain Hunters: Users on a budget, seeking cost-effective deals and second-hand items at competitive prices, attracted to the diverse selection and potential cost savings offered, and/or
Local Community supporters: Residents of Ireland who prefer to buy and sell locally.
User reviews
I started my research by collecting reviews from the App store, Google Play Store and Reddit to understand what customers like and dislike about Adverts.
Key findings from the user reviews include:
Congestion on the site is high with many “time-wasting” ads.
Notifications are riddled with bugs and glitches and the alerts are inconsistent, making them easy to find in the platform imperative.
Customers expressed desire to save time browsing by more in-depth filters.
Buyers and sellers alike rely on the feedback feature to build trust.
The platform UI is outdated and not viewed as modern.
Users want to be able to contact sellers easier prior to making an offer.
Competitor analysis
To understand what similar marketplaces are doing in the industry, I conducted a competitor analysis, which supported in identifying alternative methods to consider in my solution brainstorming.
Key findings from the competitor analysis include:
Personalisation on communication preference is offered typically between 2 options (message in app, call or email).
Setting a current location with a radius preference is the industry standard.
Detailed category filtration systems are required to aid in narrowing down the search on such large platforms.
Price preferences and location are the most important search filters and require the screen weight to show it.
Heuristic evaluation
A heuristic evaluation is like having a checklist of common sense rules for making things easy to use.
Key findings from the heuristic evaluation include:
Inconsistencies with navigation and category labelling.
Failure to keep users informed on status of items.
Information is not shown in a way users understand easily. Information overload and lack of organisation causes confusion and adds to users time spent on the platform.
Adverts is cluttered and the UI looks outdated.
Survey
I conducted a survey for the existing Adverts journey to collect feedback from users about their experiences with the platform and identify the key pinpoint pain points users encounter.
I ran my survey over the course of seven days and accumulated answers from 39 participants.
Key findings from the survey include:
Buyers and sellers rate the journey generally favourable with an average score of 7-8 out of 10.
Top liked features include selling, searching and buying.
Top disliked features include look & feel (UI), private messages and the filter.
Top favoured additions to the platform include a payment service, location-based search, and an improved product details/filter by details tool.
Reflection
Being surprised by the high-ranking response to the platforms favourability, an after thought approached myself and my mentor of including a question surrounding how familiar the users are with the existing app journey, as this could sway the results if one has become too familiar with the journey, they may deem it as easy by memory.
Usability testing
I conducted usability with 3 novice participants to understand the journey from a new users perspective and behaviours and pinpoint where these users find success and difficulty along the journey (Moran 2019).
The testing consisted of:
45 minutes total
15 minutes of interviewing to gather the users background of online shopping and any alternative second-hand marketplace experiences.
10 minutes of exploring the existing platform as it is and sharing their initial thoughts
20 minutes with tasking the user to find a ladies bike in Sandyford, Dublin under €100.
Key findings from the usability testing include:
Category selection is overloaded and using inconsistent naming conventions.
Users typically enter Adverts with a specific purpose (i.e. to buy or sell a certain item type). With this in mind, the filter is too broad and not helpful for users seeking specific items or items nearby.
User expectation from industry standards is the ability to privately contact sellers before making an offer.
The UI looks cheap and is riddled with third party ads.
Users would not click into an ad without photos.
2. Define
Goal
Get a better understanding of what all my research means, who I’m solving for and define the key problem.
Synthesise research findings
The cumulated findings from the desk research, survey and usability testing include:
Users go to Adverts with a clear purpose, whether it be to buy or sell, there is most often a specific item they have in mind.
Adverts is cluttered and over-congested with “time-wasting” ads, including an overwhelming amount of third-party ads, scams, and incomplete ads without photos.
Easy communication is vital for a second-hand marketplace for buyers and sellers to build trust with one-another.
Users want a way to narrow down search results in order to save time browsing unwanted or non-relevant items.
Adverts poor brand image and UI leads users to alternative “cooler” seeming marketplaces (i.e. FaceBook marketplace).
Users want better clarity on item status and upfront product information, rather than having to comment publicly or make an offer to get more information.
User personas
User personas are example profiles that represent target users based on the research gathered in the discovery phase. They helped me to understand and empathise with Adverts user needs, behaviours, and goals (Dam and Siang 2019).
Based on my findings in the previous phase, I created two user personas:
Persona 1: The time-conscious, thrifty buyer
Persona 2: The sustainable, financially-conscious seller
Empathy mapping
Empathy maps helps to understand user experiences by capturing their thoughts, feelings, actions, and words throughout a journey. Creating these empathy maps with the persona’s listed above helped foster a user-centered design approach and provided a visual to aid in sharing the information with designers and stakeholders (Munro 2020).
Persona 1: The thrifty buyer
Persona 2: The sustainable seller
While I am focusing on the purchase journey from the buyers perspective, my research identified that most Adverts users are both buyers and sellers dependant on their specific needs at that time. By creating personas and empathy maps for both the buyer and the seller, I was able to better differentiate the needs for Adverts users considering their specific needs for each key action.
Prioritisation matrix
A prioritization matrix helped me to decide which features to focus on first by evaluating and ranking items based on user impact, feasibility and implementation effort.
After reviewing my prioritisation matrix, I was able to pinpoint the most feasible and impactful to the customer features and create my problem statement for the scope of this project.
Problem statement
Buyers on Adverts are facing difficulty finding and experiencing prolonged search times items because:
the filtration system is too minimalistic,
the screens are too busy and overrun with third-party ads, and
users are unable to gather all the required information before making an official offer.
This is impacting users’ ability to find items quickly and feel confident in purchasing a second-hand item off the platform.
How might we make the process of filtering and finding items on the Adverts app quicker for buyers so they can buy items more easily?
3. Develop
Goal
Look at the journey with solving the problem statement in mind and ideate solutions.
Customer journey map
This is a visual representation of the buyer’s experience within Adverts based on the desk research and usability testing completed earlier in the design process.
This allowed me to identify the key highlights and pain points along the buyer’s journey. This further proved the points to focus on as pinpointed in my prioritisation matrix.
User flow
In addition to the customer journey map, drawing out the user flow gave me a visual representation for the specific tasks within the buyer journey where buyers make and act on certain decisions to either cancel or complete a journey.
Mood board
Once I understood the key areas I needed to zoom into, I created a moodboard to explore alternative apps solving similar problems to those identified in my problem statement.
This included looking at everything from textual content and signposting to UI filtration and identification ideas.
Findings
From the additional tools utilised in the develop stage with solving the problem statement in mind, this allowed me to further identify and ideate solution for the key pain points of:
Search and filter, make sifting through an abundance of unfitting results quicker, easier and more intuitive.
Enquiry/buy phase, clarify item status and logistics to acquire the item.
Providing more upfront labelling and signposting on items and a more thorough filtration system will decrease browsing time while increasing clarity and confidence for the buyers.
4. Deliver
Goal
Create the most impactful design changes for the problem statement.
Sketching
Paper sketching allowed me to quickly create very low-fidelity designs on paper to explore, visualise and further ideate solutions.
Low Fidelity Designs
Once I was happy that I had explored all potential solutions I could quickly ideate on paper with my research up to this point, I began iterating low-fidelity designs with the goal of creating a simple prototype of the potential UX solution in order complete usability testing to evaluate the overall UX, intuitiveness and functionality.
Usability testing
Usability testing was completed on the low- fidelity prototype exemplified above. The purpose of this testing was to ensure the solution ideation was on the right track to solve the problem statement for app users.
The testing consisted of:
45 minutes per session
5 users, 3 existing app users and 2 novice users
Mobile testing
Key findings from the usability testing include:
Users expected to see their “recent activity” at login regardless of buyer or seller.
Status pills were deemed important but required further clarity as users did not understand if the pill referred to their actions or the item status iteself.
Categories were the preferred search method due to inconsistent naming conventions in second-hand marketplaces, meaning category list visibility and clarity was imperative.
Distance was the most important aspect of results for all testers, suggesting the ‘Sort’ default should be distance from the user.
The seller rating is important to all users, but when it is important varies. Some users wouldn’t click into an ad with a low-rated seller, while others would only look at the seller if they’re interested in taking the next step to buy an item. This implying the seller rating should be transparent to cater to all user preferences.
“There’s times I’ve liked an item and gone in to see it wasn’t even in Dublin”
“If someone has a bad rating I’m less inclined even consider offering”
Reflection
After completing this round of usability testing, it is important to highlight that I found the usability testing, while a lot of good feedback was obtained, to be somewhat hindered by the low fidelity of the designs. UI can often provide further context into functionality and add to intuitiveness of a design. I found many of my testers to get distracted by the “placeholder” content within the designs rather than providing feedback solely on the flow itself.
Feedback session
In addition to usability testing, I exercised my resources within my knowledgeable and skillful design team colleagues at AIB. During one of our weekly demonstration and critique sessions, I presented the low fidelity designs and identified my usability testing findings, while asking for further feedback from a design perspective and idea exploration in a collaborative setting.
Key findings from the feedback session include:
Spacing issues identified - in marketplace platforms, there is a lot of information to fit into a small space on an app screen. Designers referenced apps that solve for this well, such as ASOS and PrettyLittleThing.
Status pill ideation - Designers recommended including the offer price as an addition to transparency that would remove pill ambiguity.
Accessibility issues identified - Designers advised on potential accessibility test failures for me to explore further.
Grouping - Designers identified related content that would benefit from being grouped together.
Iterations & High Fidelity Designs
Based on the feedback received in both the usability testing and feedback session, I began iterating the designs to include updates on the pain points identified and adding in UI elements to update the app to a more modern look as identified as an issue earlier in my research.
Key changes included:
Adding recent activity to the front of the buyer and seller hubs,
Making categories stand out more,
Editings font and icon sizing and spacing to include accessibility needs,
Grouping related content more concisely, such as search functions, and
Adding more intuitive UI elements throughout the journey.
Final Presentation
Final Prototype
While the above high fidelity designs were presented at the UX Tree round 6 final meetup, with still 4 weeks left to complete my final case study for submission I continued to iterate the UI design and update the prototype until I felt it was up to the standards I was happy with. My final prototype can be seen and interacted with below.
5. Reflection & Conclusion
Overall, I am delighted with the work and effort I put into this project. However, I believe there is always room for reflection and personal development after each project. It is always helpful for me to identify key challenges, highlights, learnings and what I would do differently next time as a standard post-process reflection to continue growing as a designer with every design I work on.
Highlights
Strong, comprehensive desk research with colour-coded visuals and finding recaps after each tool utilised.
Thorough personas and empathy maps to differentiate between buyers and sellers, which can be used during future Adverts design projects for solving problems from both the buyer and seller perspective.
Receptiveness for feedback at each stage of the design process and willingness to update and iterate regularly.
Post-final presentation prototyping and UI updates to make the sleekest, most user-friendly prototype possible.
Learnings
Timing is everything, and life happens! After experiencing a few planned and unplanned personal roadblocks during the duration of this project, I learned the importance of sticking to schedule when possible alongside improvising when unexpected turns appear.
The value of desk research, the thorough desk research I completed throughout this project really allowed me to set the scene for the rest of the project with a clear goal in mind.
How much a design can change from only one round of testing and the value of testing between every stage possible.
Filter systems are much harder than they look and something I think many of us take for granted with the large usage of them in our everyday life.
What I would do differently
More testing on the high fidelity designs to receive further feedback and optimise the design to the best of my research findings and ability.
Complete a deeper dive into filtration systems from alternative industry apps during the research phase to understand filters inside-out from a UX and UI perspective.
Look further into a business solution for the third-party ads and where to relocate them on the Adverts.ie website.
More UI exploration for a more modern app while sticking within the company style guide prior to final presentation.
Take more time to with prototyping, especially with the filter, to create the smoothest prototype possible prior to final presentation.
Next steps
Considering what I would do differently and if I had unlimited timing to continue design iterations, I would conduct further usability testing on the high fidelity prototype and continue design iterations to further optimise the UX and UI for the best user journey possible.
Once the further testing and iterations are completed, the next step would be handover to developers for build and continue open communication and quality assurance checks as the developers build out the new designs and functionality.