Carousell App UX Study — Redesigned for better time management for users

Easily manage all clarifications and preferred deals for second-hand items

Background — Why Carousell?

During Covid-19 lockdown, e-commerce platforms experienced a surge in consumer traffic. One of the popular platforms was Carousell — a community marketplace/classifieds web-platform, especially for second-hand goods.

Financial fallout due to Covid-19 had people becoming more budget-conscious, and Carousell offered an alternative to make a saving or earn a profit over the transaction of second-hand goods. Moreover, Carousell supports the eco-lifestyle of reusing and extending the lifecycle of your belongings.

Looking at the impact of Carousell, my team at UX Bootcamp choose to discover how the App user experience can be further enhanced. During the purchase of second-hand goods, users engage in negotiation and queries about the used item, making the Chat feature very crucial for the platform. Our group decided that our primary focus would be Carousell Chat.

The Process

Applying the Design Thinking methodology, we started with the first step- empathize with the users. Our team conducted three research methods to develop the understanding of pain-points and inconveniences faced by Carousell users:

1. Contextual Inquiry — 3 users
2. User Interviews — 5 users
3. User Surveys — 40 respondents

The above methods helped us understand the mental models of users for the following:

• How they choose the final buyer (or seller).
• How they remember from which user to buy or sell.
• How long they spend on Carousell before purchasing (or selling) an item.
• What they feel takes the longest time for their Carousell transactions.
• What draws them to Carousell or frustrates them in comparison to other platforms.
• User satisfaction degree with Carousell.

The UX research findings were compiled in an affinity map as shown below. Issues that users had outside of the Chat feature was also captured.

Personas

From the Contextual Inquiry and User Interviews, the user personas were created to cater the problem, and the solution, to a specific user base. Our focus is on users who utilize Carousell frequently to buy or sell items, especially high-end priced items that stimulate more negotiation or product clarification on the chat.

“Price listed on Carousell is higher than what sellers are willing to let go. Therefore, I need to bargain to get a fair price even if I dislike bargaining”

Pain points and Ideation

The second and third stage of the design thinking process — Define and Ideate. Based on the findings from the contextual inquiry, the user interviews, and surveys, my team decided to define the scope of our project concluded from the two pain points identified:

PAIN POINT #1

Carousell sellers or buyers need a better way to manage and organize their dealings in the Chat because good time management and efficiency would make online purchases seem less tedious.

“So many buyers ask me the same question or similar ones. I have to type the same reply every time. For the longer clarification replies, I search for the message to copy, or I save the message to notepad.”

Carousell provides useful Copy text functions and preset Reply templates to aid the users. However, repeated lengthy messages are not reflected automatically as Reply templates. When the user has to send the same message to multiple chats, the user has to open individual chats to paste the reply. In contrast, in other apps, the forward text function allows for fast sharing with multiple people with few clicks.

“During the chats, I can narrow down 1–2 sellers with the best deal and item. I save those listing links to another app. I continue negotiating with them and others.”

The Wishlist feature is available on Carousell — but it is used primarily in the preliminary search for items. Once the user starts talking to different sellers for an item (e.g. headphones), the user may decide that few sellers have the better value for money — the better price or item condition, etc. To recall their final 2–3 preferred sellers (or buyers), the users may remember the listing or open chat to remember or save the listing to another app.

How might we help users manage their interaction more efficiently so that they can make the deal swiftly and proceed to the next item of their interest?

• Similar to Whatsapp or Facebook, the proposed design provides users the flexibility and familiarity to forward or star a message. This would save them time typing the same response to multiple people.
• Make the Chat filter more visible by using tabs rather than a scroll down menu.
• Have a Bookmark feature to highlight favored sellers or buyers to help users recognize them easily instead of recalling them.

The wireframe for the design solution is shown below:

PAIN POINT #2

Another pain point discovered during UX research was that users find it inconvenient when they have to select only one category for their item (during listing).

Which category should I list my sofa chair under — Chair or Sofa? I want them to be discoverable under both categories.

How might we improve the accuracy and flexibility of item category listing for users?

The proposed design lets the users categorize listings with 2 more descriptions tagging to the main category. Amazon, for example, shows more than one category for the item.

The wireframe for the design solution is shown below:

Device Mockups

Visible Chat Filter and Bookmarking

The proposed design allows users to easily toggle between different chat items —to provide for better management of buying and selling items.

Chat forward and Star messages

The proposed design affords the users the flexibility to forward or save message replies for more efficient dealings.

Additional Listing Categories

Users can now select more than one category if they are confused about the best category match.

Moving Forward

Our UX research findings showed that there is a need to guide users to set a fair price for the items so that the negotiation process does not drag on. That would require a comprehensive study of market price and was not covered under the scope of the Bootcamp. That would be a study for the future.