Marketplace Design

Project Overview

Project Duration

8 weeks (4 sprints)

My Role

UX Designer/Researcher

My Team

Matt C. — Lead Software Engineer

Mike I. — Software Engineer

Umar M. — Software Engineer

Muhammed A. — Software Engineer

Programs

Figma, FigJam, Jira, Slack, Loom, Airtable, Google Meet, Metabase

Key Skills

Research, Strategy, Product Roadmapping, Visual Design, Wireframing, Public Speaking

Transect | Find Your Project Site

 

Transect is a GIS software company that created a mapping tool to improve the process of finding land for Solar, Wind and Real Estate projects.

As Transect’s sole UX designer on the team, I redesigned the Marketplace inside the Transect App. I worked closely with our Pakistani and American development teams across two timezones.

Old Marketplace view

The Problem

 

Based on user feedback, I discovered a few things about our old marketplace:

  • It is buried low in the report tabs

  • Poor UI and aesthetics

  • User flow to purchase item is frustrating

(See below)

Research: What Do Users Say?

 

I interviewed 6+ of our top users to understand their goals and frustrations around the current Marketplace.

 

Research: What Do They Want?

 

I then gathered the Marketing, Customer Success and Sales teams into one room and lead everyone through a User Persona Creation Worksop. Transect had never done this before and this was my chance to bring design principles into the company’s regular practice.

 
 

Personas Outcome

 

Synthesizing all the data from the workshop and in interviews, I realized we needed to design for 3 types of users: Entry, Mid, and Senior level. These 3 types of users were interacting with the app in different ways, so designing with each of these in mind was crucial to quick user adoption.

Entry-Level User

Entry-Level User

Mid-Level User

Mid-Level User

Senior-Level User

Senior-Level User

  • “I want a to quickly purchase an add-on for a project”

  • “I want to know exactly what I’m buying and how much it costs”

  • “I want to be able to quickly browse all the products that Transect has to offer”

Sketches: Fail Fast

 

Early on, as I grappled with the different scopes of this project, sketching different configurations out was key for me to realize we needed to focus on the report-centric Marketplace.

 

Low Fidelity

 

At this stage, I was just getting the main elements of the Marketplace in order. I knew I wanted to reduce the user’s journey to purchasing the item, but also wanted to make sure we were providing enough information.

 

Better Market Analysis

 
 

I wasn’t completely happy with how the designs were turning out, even at a low fidelity stage. It seemed too clunky. I wanted a cleaner aesthetic. I decided to dive back into competitive and comparative analysis for inspiration.

After some inspiration, I went back and made some changes to the design, opting for a cleaner, sleeker look.

Pivot

 

I realized that we needed to pull the marketplace out of the reports. This was due to the increased marketplace items coming down the product roadmap plus users continued to have trouble finding the marketplace.

3rd Party Integration

 

We had to take into account the technical relationships with our external partners who were providing a lot of the products. Examples were the Title Chain & Lien Reports which we had to data source from DataTree (First American) a title database company.

Getting closer

 

Bringing the designs to low fidelity helped us test the usability now the concepts had been solidified.

More User Testing

 

80% of our users tested were able to find their add-on item without any guidance from us, the observers.

100% rated this new Marketplace flow as more user friendly than before.

Outcome

 

We saw the number of report add-ons jump up after launch.

Reflection

 

I’m thankful for the opportunity to work on such an important part of the Transect App - one that will continue to evolve as time goes on. As with each project, there are always things I wish I would’ve done better:

  • I wish I could’ve had more time to spend perfecting the UI theme and effects

  • I wish I would’ve committed sooner to a scope, rather than prolonging the research phase

  • I should’ve tried to reach out to users for testing right as the project started