Agora - Short Redesign Project

Solo Internship project | Web-page

Timeline

22/08/23 (~ 2 hours)

Tools

Figma

Jump straight to:

Background

About Agora

Target audience

The Problem

My Solution

The Result

Reflection

Conclusion

Background

During my internship at Fine-Line, they wanted to upload a new social media post. Me and the other interns received a challenge: to see how well each of us could improve something that is ‘poorly’ designed, in under two hours. I chose to redesign Agora's front page.

About Agora

Agora is a website for exchanging second-hand items. I like this website, It helps me say goodbye to items I no longer need without feeling guilty, and, I got a free TV! :)

A screenshot of Agora’s front-page

Although it is genrally comfortable, the website is pretty cluttered and some design choices are weird. As a UX/UI designer, fantasies on how to improve it kept popping into my mind, so naturally when I got the assignment, re-designing Agora was my first choice.

The Problem

There isn't much whitespace

There is no color hierarchy

There is more demand for items than items that are being donated.

When searching for items, users are only able to see the items’ pictures by pressing on them.

Items are presented in an uncomfortable auto-sliding carousel with no navigation.

The website is cluttered.
The visual noise can be overwhelming for some users.

Target audience

Agora’s current audience consists of:

College / University students
Young couples
Soldiers
Yeshiva students
Pensioners

I believe it includes people who:

Feel bad about throwing things away.
Care about environmental issues.

Redesigning the website to look more inviting and comfortable, would hopefully attract people from higher economic groups and encourage more donations. I believe the target audience should aim to include them as well.

The Problem

The website is cluttered.
The visual noise can be overwhelming for some users.

There isn't much whitespace

There is no color hierarchy

There is more demand for items than items that are being donated.

Items are presented in an uncomfortable auto-sliding carousel with no navigation.

When searching for items, users are only able to see the items’ pictures by pressing on them.

My Solution

Added white space.

I added a statement that highlights the importance of donating, and gives a sense of community.

Used a hamburger menu to hide details that are not always necessary.

Made the ‘Give an item’ button more apparent by:

Correcting the page’s color hierarchy.
Highlighting ‘Give an item’ in comparison to other buttons.
And, making the button sticky (therefore more accessible).

Created a feed of Items, not only with Information but also images.

The Result

Reflection

Given more time I think the best first step would be to conduct a user test on the original website before re-designing. I believe my solutions did solve many of the website’s problems but these were the problems I came across, other users might have very different needs.
Agora currently has 2 websites, they are mostly similar but I chose to redesign the older one to make the post more interesting. The new website has new features that I will definitely include if I decide to expand this project.
Since the new website doesn't have commercials I decided to leave them out this time, integrating them might have been an interesting additional challenge.

Conclusion

Overall, there are many additional steps I would take if this was a longer project. Creating a design in 2 hours for a social media post is very different than uploading actual changes to a website that people are already used to.

Still, this was a fun and interesting experience and I believe the changes I made have the potential to vastly improve the website.