Add a Feature to Facebook Marketplace
Understand users' pain points and find ways to improve the user experience by adding a new feature.
Scope
By implementing this new feature Get a price, we will empower users to create high-quality listings efficiently, boosting their confidence and productivity while distinguishing our platform from competitors.
Time given: 80 hours
My Role:
UX/UI Design
UX Research
Tools:
Figma
Google Meet
Mase
ChatGPT
Key Techniques
Competitor Analysis
Market Research
Affinity Mapping
User Personas
Storyboarding
Site Mapping
Wireframes
Prototyping
Usability Testing
My Process
Add a Feature “Get an Estimate”
to Facebook Marketplace.
Industry: e-commerce platform
Background: Marketplace is an e-commerce platform that connects sellers and buyers through meaningful interactions and unique goods. It is accessible through the Facebook website and mobile app. The platform offers a wide range of categories to buy and sell. Facebook Marketplace is a classified ads section within the Facebook platform. It was initially launched in 2007 and featured categories such as job opportunities, items for sale, and housing for rent or sale. It didn't gain traction at the time, so Facebook revamped and relaunched it in October 2016 and it has been live ever since. Facebook leverages the Marketplace through its social network. Users have a 70 % success rate for their listings. Facebook has 2.2 billion users therefore this is a great way for individuals or businesses to buy and sell Items.
Objective: As Facebook marketplace user myself I think that adding a “Get a Price” feature would be a great option. A lot of times the user does not feel confident pricing their item and therefore has to do some search around for similar items. In some cases, there aren't too many similar items to get an idea from. Also doing an item search can be time consuming and goal distractive.
Feature goals: Help users feel confident about their item and price. Save time for the user by eliminating distraction and finishing the task. Users can list more items in a short time frame. This feature will be useful and convenient.
Success metric:
- Easy to use
- Time saver
- Positive user feedback
Research plan
Problem:
I want to make the “selling on Facebook marketplace” process more successful, accurate and effective by adding a new feature to the site. Currently, when adding a listing, the user has to list the item without knowing what the item is worth. Users are only able to get similar item listings, which they can see only after listing their item or running a search. By adding this feature users can save a lot of time adding a listing and price the item accurately, therefore the selling process would be faster and effective which would result in increased user success rate, faster selling process, and user satisfaction with the marketplace. This feature would differentiate the Facebook marketplace from its competitors like eBay and postmark.
Background:
Facebook marketplace is a great way to sell and buy, rent and advertise products. Facebook marketplace has a 70 % user success rate.
Research Goal:
Understand users' pain points and find ways to improve the user experience by adding a new feature.
Objectives:
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Understand user pain points and frustrations.
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Understand why users prefer a different site for selling their goods.
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Determine how adding a “New” feature will chance UX.
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Understand user expectations.
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Determine why users prefer Facebook Marketplace over the competitor site.
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Determine if adding a “Get a Price” will have a positive effect on Facebook Marketplace user experience.
Research Methods:
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Conduct Competitive analysis on similar platforms (Postmark, Ebay)
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Conduct User Interviews with at least 5 users.
Competitive Analysis for adding a new feature to Facebook Marketplace.
For my competitive analysis I decided to conduct my research on Facebook Marketplace competitors' platforms such as Poshmark, eBay and Depop.
These are similar and competitive platforms that have a lot in common. Their purpose is to provide individuals and businesses with tools to sell and buy items.
My research was focused on areas like target audience, user satisfaction, User pain points, accessibility, strengths, weaknesses and other important facts.
None of these sites have a “Get an estimate” feature. When the price tag is high the listing can be up for sale for a long time, product might not even be sold because of the price tag being high. A user may not feeI confident putting a price tag on the listing item and I don't always have the time to browse on the platform in the search for similar items. I think that by adding this key feature like “ Get an estimate” for the item would help users with the listing and selling process by significantly decreasing listing process time. This feature would be effective in the process of listing and finalizing the sale.
Access detailed Analysis Here
User interview insights
Interview summaries:
For this project add a feature to Facebook Marketplace I interviewed and recorded five participants. All of my interventions were from different backgrounds and age range between 20-40 years old. All of the interview participants had some experience with using Marketplace platforms. Conducting my research interviews, I got some very valuable information and got to understand user frustrations, concerns and pain points.
Summary:
Summarizing my research information, I have a deep understanding of user pain points. My research insights not only proved the need for my research goal for this feature but also gave me inspiration for adding more possible features to the Marketplace.
All participants HERE
Two participants through MAZE
Three participants through Google meet
Developing User Personas
Using the research, the next step in my process was to create user personas based on the real people I interviewed and surveyed. To help establish a clear purpose, I was able to identify the unique personas above.
Problem statements
POV...
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Users find it time consuming when they have to run a product search.
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Users don't feel that they can’t stay on task while doing an item search.
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Users Would like to have payment options to be added to the Facebook Marketplace.
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Users Would like to have access to the item conditions in one click.
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Users would like to sell their listing in a matter of just a couple of days.
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Users would like to feel confident about their price and listing process.
HMW...
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Make a listing process fast and accessible?
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Eliminate distraction while the user is trying to put up their listing?
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Add an additional feature such as payment options?
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Have the item condition tag added to the item image, so that the user can access it with just one click?
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Increase user satisfaction and elevate product (F.M) success rate?
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Elevate user confidence and gain more F.M users?
Card Sorting and Information Architecture
User Flow
Next, I created user flows and task flows using Whimsical. This involves mapping out the journey a user takes within the website, which helps me understand the user's experience, identify potential pain points, and optimize the interface for a seamless and intuitive interaction.
LOW TO MID-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Starting with low-fidelity wireframes involves creating basic, hierarchy of the interface's layout and structure, typically using simple shapes and placeholders. Mid-fidelity wireframes add more detail and content, providing a clearer picture of the design.
Link to details
HIGH FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
and PROTOTYPING
I've created Hi Fi wireframes sing Figma. All frames and screens are designed to be interactive, and all of the connections are made. This is the final product.
Link to Figma file
Usability testing
Hi -Fi User testing
Tested task:
In this user testing research, my goal was to get user feedback on a new ‘Added’ feature on Facebook Marketplace App: “Get a price”. This new feature task flow should be only about four pages, so the test is only a minute long.
Goal:
My goal is to understand if this ‘Added’ feature will meet user needs and bring a new useful option to the Facebook Marketplace App.
Participants:
6 Participants via Discord and Lyssna
Test overview:
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5 out of 6 Participants easily navigated through the task flow.
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Feature seems to be helpful and easy to understand.
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Feature meets Marketplace and user goals.
Reflection
For this project I decided to add a feature to Facebook Marketplace because of its large user community. Knowing that there are a lot of users that don’t use Facebook as a social media but instead they use it as a platform to sell, rent etc.
Conducting user interviews and getting their valuable feedback and insights on their real-life problems with the Marketplaces I, once again, knew that this “New” feature would be so helpful and solve most users' problems.
Difficult decisions:
During my user interviews I had to decide on making a decision on which feature would be more important to add. Another option and pain point was adding a condition card accessible from the image card, so that the user can see it without any more clicks. This was recommended and mentioned by one Marketplace user during my research.
Takeaways:
Having this feature in Facebook Marketplace would differentiate Facebook from its competitors. Grow the Facebook community. Increase Marketplace selling rate and maximize the seller prophet on Facebook.
Other ideas and user suggestions:
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Add payment option to Facebook Marketplace.
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Add "condition" information on the item card.