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Facebook Marketplace
A feature redesign to optimize the buying and selling process for users.
I designed a research-backed feature change to improve interactions between buyers and sellers to facilitate more efficient transactions.
Reducing user friction when viewing and creating listings, and refining user communication flows.
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Project Type
Academic Project
Key Skills
Ideation
Desk Research
Competitive Analysis
User Research & Interviews
Product Design & Iterations
Interactive Prototype
Timeline
7 weeks
Project Overview
Marketplace is a peer-to-peer e-commerce platform within the social media network Facebook. It aims to facilitate the convenient and accessible sale or trade of a variety of goods and services within a user's local communities. The platform connects buyers and sellers directly to communicate, negotiate, and arrange in-person transactions.
While Facebook is part of a multi-billion-dollar company with a massive existing functional UX/UI ecosystem, after researching Marketplace-specific users, I identified four key areas for potential improvement: safety, communication, quality control, and personalization.
My goal with this project was to understand users' pain points and implement subtle design solutions to meet users' needs without overhauling Marketplace's existing interface — integrating feature and system changes intuitively with the platform's existing user flow.
Discovery
Minimal Upfront Information:
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Listings on the Explore page offer very few details upfront. Users must select an item to see basic information, such as location, how long the listing has been active, and complete basic tasks like saving the listing for later or sharing.
Initial Observations
How might we help users search for and buy products more effectively?
Initial Problem Statement
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Lack of Inbox Filtering:
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Marketplaces' integrated communication tool, Messenger, offers no filtering or search capabilities. The lack of sorting leads to overwhelmed users, as cognitive load increases when navigating high-volume communication.
Current Facebook Marketplace Mobile Interface
Process
Competetive Analysis
I analyzed the top direct and indirect competitors to assess their strengths and weaknesses and identify opportunities to integrate my findings into Marketplace's interface.
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Secure Payments
Quality Verification
User Support
Community
Each of these competitors offers an in-app secure payment option. This gives users peace of mind that their money is safe and their purchase is guarenteed.
Each of these competitors offers in-house authenticity verification to ensure users are receiving quality products. This establishes trust between the client and the user.
Each of these competitors has a dedicated user support team. Allowing users to report issues and receive help ensures customer satisfaction.
Each of these competitors has successfully established a community amongst its users and have cemented themselves in their specific niche.
User Interviews
Approach
User Type: Buyer
Method
I sent out screener surveys to find 6 participants within my target audience to conduct user interviews.
The goal of these interviews was to identify current users' pain points and gain a deeper understanding of their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and behaviors surrounding the current Marketplace task flow.
Objectives
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Understand potential barriers to shipping/picking up goods.
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Identify key communication issues between buyers and sellers
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Understand how location impacts the buying of products and services.
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Discover pain points when searching for goods and services.
Participant Overview
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Key Findings
Behaviors & Opinions
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Most participants search for items using keywords; very few browse by category or use the ‘Today’s Picks’ feature.
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Most participants prefer to purchase items with cash. Venmo and Zelle are the most popular alternatives.
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Messenger is the main mode of communication for all participants.
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Most participants prefer to meet at a public location and, more often than not, bring another person with them.
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The most popular item categories searched by interview participants include home goods (furniture and decor), fashion and accessories, and auto parts.
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The average participant's preferred travel time is under 45 minutes for an item. Most would be willing to travel longer for the right item.
Pain Points
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All participants have encountered potentially fraudulent or suspicious activity while using Facebook Marketplace.
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Participants note that when arranging multiple purchases, the inability to filter/search through chats is a point of frustration.
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All participants have passed on an item if it has a vague product description or lacks adequate photos.
Motivations
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Participants are more likely to negotiate costs on more expensive items.
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Participants are more likely to leave ratings than written reviews.
Insights
Safety
5/6 participants cited safety as their top concern when interacting with sellers.
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Physical/Personal -
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Users take additional precautions to ensure their safety when meeting with sellers.
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Financial Safety-
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Users often feel uneasy about sending money to sellers electronically (Zelle, Venmo, Cash App, etc. )
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Data/Information
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All participants have experienced an interaction that they felt was suspicious or potentially fraudulent.
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There is an opportunity to increase security measures and privacy controls to protect users and provide them with peace of mind.
Communication
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Messenger is the primary mode of communication for all participants.
- Poor or limited communication between sellers and buyers is one of the main reasons why sales fall through or are not initiated in the first place.
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Aside from arranging a pick-up, users most often message sellers to request additional information about a product that may be missing from the listing.
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The inability to filter/search through chats is a point of frustration for users.
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There is an opportunity to improve communication methods to provide buyers with the information they desire.
Quality Control
Buyers rely almost entirely on seller-produced information to determine if an item meets their criteria for purchase.
- Besides in-person inspection, quality control is difficult to verify while browsing listings.
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Buyers are more likely to purchase an item or inquire about purchasing an item if the descriptions are robust and include an adequate amount of images.
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Ample listing information, including images, descriptions, dimensions, and other details, streamlines the transaction process.
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There is an opportunity to require more comprehensive information from sellers when they are listing items for sale.
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User Archetype
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Revisiting the Problem Statement
My original user group was buyers; however, upon entering the design phase of the project, while ideating solutions, it became clear that the majority of the buyers' pain points centered around how sellers were interacting with the app.
Finding a way to utilize my buyer-centered research and apply it to the seller's experience was a major turning point in this process.
Ideating Solutions
Based on my updated “HMW” statement and keeping in mind the main concepts gathered from my user research, I began ideating potential solutions.
Safety
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Communication
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Quality Control
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Personalization
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Prototypes
Prototype Walk-Through
While iterating through the design process, brand consistency was a main consideration.
Sketches and Wireframes are a crucial part of the process; however, since Facebook is a very well-established company, I moved straight into high-fidelity prototyping to ensure my feature updates integrated seamlessly with the existing layout and branding.
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"Action Item Zone" allows users to quickly navigate to their desired page.
Increased product information at first glance, and additional action features.
Saved items on home screen to track product changes and increase engagement.
Customizable filters allow users to establish personalized navigation settings and adjust how information displays on their home screen.
Message search and filter options allow users to easily navigate their inboxes.
Users can find specific messages by searching based on several different categories:
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Keywords
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Product Titles
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Listing Type
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By Date
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Product Category
Filters and settings allow users to organize their inbox based on their preferences, including:
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Show in ascending/descending chronological order
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Organize by sent or received
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Organize by listing
Helpful tips to guide users through the process of creating a listing and provide feedback on how to improve listing quality to increase engagement and sale potential.
Generative AI to help users create robust product description that include all relevant information to help reduce redundant communication and streamline the transaction process.
Reorganization of product information.
Front loading important details to quickly allow users to scan listings and determine if an item meets their purchase criteria.
User verification indicators to help reduce scams and fraudulent activity.
Promoting additional items the seller has listed to increase engagement.
Providing similar listings to help users that are looking for specific items and styles.
Lessons Learned
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Post-Interview Downloads
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With such a short timeline, my research period was very condensed, often resulting in consecutive interviews. I learned to space interviews out more, if possible, and do a download immediately after. Back-to-back interviews had a tendency to bleed into one another.
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Expand User Type
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Many Facebook Marketplace buyers are also sellers. Having participants distinguish between their experiences as both buyers and sellers during interviews was difficult.
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Broaden Participant Pool:
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Seek interview participants further outside of my social circle to fully practice my interviewing skills.
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The familiarity restricted the flow and broke down the agenda at moments.
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