Designing a new messaging tool for OLX Brasil — a UX case study
The challenge of connecting more Brazilians in a secure and fast way.
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When negotiating on OLX, buyers and sellers have full autonomy and together they decide the best way to close their deals. Unlike traditional e-commerce, negotiations are made directly between users.
Whether it is to negotiate prices, ask questions, combine deliveries or meeting points, communication is a very important part of the buying and selling experience.
In this article, we will discuss the challenges we had, along with the Messaging team, to connect even more Brazilians in a secure and fast way.
Starting Point
Quantitative analysis showed low user engagement with the Messaging tool, evidenced by the high rate of unanswered chats and a higher than expected response time.
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In addition, as it was the primary means of communication between users in the platform, it was important for the Messaging tool to be aligned with the new visual standards and guidelines that we had previously defined for the product.
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This led us to work on updating the interface while running a discovery process to identify users’ needs and expectations about negotiating on the platform.
The goal was to map out the problems that needed to be solved in order to increase the messaging tool’s use and it’s user engagement.
Understanding how users with different profiles interact with the Messaging tool on OLX and other platforms helped us plan new features that could assist multiple user profiles and identify new trading opportunities.
Discovery phase
Analysis of the tickets received by the Customer Service team through our Help Center is a step that precedes our Discovery process. This actually happens over time, since our squads have frequent contact with the tickets panel and the teams responsible for managing them. In this case, most of the tickets referred to two issues: instabilities in the platform and lack of response from other users.
We had some initial clues and hypotheses for these issues, but first, we needed to understand them better.
To achieve this, our Discovery consisted of 2 phases: launching contextual surveys in the desktop version of the chat, and interviewing users.
1. Contextual polls in the Chat Page
For quick answers in the context of use, we launched 2 polls on our Messaging tool page.
With the first one, the goal was to understand the satisfaction level and main themes related to its use. With the second, our goal was to understand the main reasons for using other ways to negotiate.
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2. User interviews
From a survey sent to our user base, we invited some users of different profiles to an interview. The goal was to identify user behaviors and expectations regarding negotiations at OLX and in other platforms. The interview had a semi-structured format and activities to stimulate conversations.
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After the interview phase, which involved the whole Messaging team, we created an affinity diagram to identify emerging issues and generate insights.
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3. Major findings from the Discovery phase
The most frequent comments on the polls also showed up at the interviews and could be verified.
- Real-time experience: Users have the feeling that our Messaging tool is not as instantaneous as other messaging services they are used to.
- Lack of trust in sending and receiving messages: Users feel insecure about their messages being delivered, which in many cases leads them to use WhatsApp or make phone calls.
- The Messaging tool only being used to start negotiations: Despite making users insecure, phone calls speed up communication when there’s a lot of interest in an ad.
- Disqualified contacts and misbehavior: Some users tend to feel insecure when negotiating. Connecting and chatting via WhatsApp makes them feel safer.
Final Solution
Considering the needs mapped in the Discovery phases and prioritizing them with the dev team, we proposed the following improvements to the messaging tool:
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1. User status
Conveying a sense of promptness was one of our main bets to increase engagement. For this reason, we included user statuses (online and last seen) in conversation windows.
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We also suggested a standard for time and date notations of the last visualization.
- “last seen at 17:48”: if the contact last accessed on the same day as you see the message.
- “yesterday at 17:48”: if the contact last accessed on the day prior to when you see the message.
- “Sunday”: if the contact last accessed in the past 6 days.
- “03/10/2019”: if the last access was made 6 or more days ago.
2. Predefined messages
As a way to encourage using the tool to first contact the seller, we created predefined messages through which buyers can ask a question regarding the ad or show their interest. For sellers, ready-made phrases have also been suggested in response to some of the most common questions.
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It was important that the messages were accessible to users on their first contact. That’s why it was fixed above the input and highlighted the moment they are displayed with an entrance animation.
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3. Message Status
Still aiming at immediacy, we have included 4 message statuses: not sent (error in sending), sent, delivered and read.
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We used Lottie to implement the proposed animations for the status change.
4. Grouping by date and time
To better organize messages and indicate when they were exchanged, the chat bubbles are now grouped per hour. We also suggested a standard for time and date notations.
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5. Contextual security tips
To increase confidence and help prevent scams, we created contextual security tips that appear in specific scenarios and educate users.
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Results
The final solution is now available to 100% of users who access the platform on a desktop computer.
The new features in the Chat and Adview pages increased the number of ad replies by 15.4%, total chats created by 7% and total messages sent by 7.5%.
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This was a big step on turning OLX Chat into the safest way to negotiate. Soon we will have more to share on how we intend to make trading even more secure, fast and flexible.
Thank you for your time! We hope you have enjoyed. We would love to hear any feedback or questions you might have. 😉
Say hello at: alice.wanderley@olxbr.com or andre.dias@olxbr.com