For the past few decades, numerous marketplaces have emerged with eye-catching missions and visions, leading to intense competition that could make you scream. To beat the competition and build a user-centric marketplace, you might have to improve your platform by enhancing the user experience.
You probably have heard of UX and UI designs. Perhaps you've even implemented some of its principles on your platform. However, there may be leakages you haven't noticed yet, and they could utterly harm your user experience if not remedied.
Before we begin -
What are UX and UI design?
Historians traced the origins of designs to early cave paintings, long before the invention of software and tools like Photoshop and our dear Illustrator. But it was only after the Industrial Revolution that design exploded for marketing purposes.
However, this idea soon shifted from theoretical to practical experience, giving birth to these two very close terms: User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI).
User Experience focuses primarily on the impression that users get from working with your platform interface, while User Interface determines how comfortable the design is. For instance, how readable the text is, how visible and easy the buttons are to click, and the placement of various elements on your website.
To build a user-centric marketplace that's warm on the eyes, friendly, and professional, you might need to check out the following tips:
1. Simplicity
Simplicity is gold. The famous French Poet, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said: Perfection is achieved, not when there's nothing more to add, but when there's nothing left to take away. This quote proves the importance of simplicity, especially when it comes to the design of your platform.
So, what is simplicity?
Simplicity means removing all the unnecessary elements from your platform, leading to a sleek and clean layout appealing to your users. But, of course, it doesn't involve eliminating fancy elements alone, but also your color scheme has to be uniform and consistent throughout your pages.
Simplicity does three things:
- Improves the legibility of your platform
- Improves the first impression of your users
- And ensures that your platform is easily customizable in the future
2. Incorporate White Spaces
When you're building your marketplace, it is always tempting to stuff your platform with all the fancy bells and whistles. But, unfortunately, this ends up making your platform look amateurish.
However, you can use white spaces to improve the look and feel of your platform. It is also known as negative space, and it is a portion of your page that is left blank. Yes, blank.
An excellent example of whitespaces that we're all familiar with is Google. Their homepage is filled with whitespaces, so we can focus on what's important.
To include whitespaces on your platform, you need to start thinking about every page detail, like the margins, header, menus, captions, footer, words, and letters. Then, think about all these elements and look for a way to leave spaces between them. This practice allows your user's eyes to relax without getting overwhelmed
3. Responsive Design
According to Datareportal, there were over 14.35 million mobile connections in Sweden in 2021. So having an unresponsive platform is like throwing money away. On the other hand, a responsive design will make your platform mobile-friendly and improve how it looks on devices with large and small screens.
There are more perks to this, as it decreases the bounce rate on your marketplace, which translates to more revenue and engagement. Not to forget that search engines like Google and Bing love responsive looking websites.
Take note that there are several types of responsive design: for desktop, tablet, and phone versions. Work with your developer, and feel free to test the responsiveness of your platform on different devices and screens to make sure your platform is displayed correctly.
4. Improve Transparency
Transparency breeds trust. When users don't understand the rules and processes involved in buying a product or service, they are likely to use the back button and never return. That would indeed be a plus for your competitors.
To avoid this, ensure your marketplace resonates with openness, honesty, and clarity. There should be no room for ambiguity or confusion in your marketplace, from finding the right product or service to ordering and delivery.
Sometimes mistakes happen. It's normal, and neither do your users expect you to be perfect. However, they want to see an engaged team that is not afraid to admit failures. And when your marketplace owns up to its shortcomings and goes forward to improve, your users become loyal and will stick around for a long time.
5. Password Free Experience
Most businesses are constantly trying to find the balance between security and productivity. They want to reduce the risk of a breach and at the same time, keep users happy and provide them with easy access. It is a delicate dance, no doubt. Nevertheless, people are becoming tired of the many passwords they have to manage, giving rise to the popularity of password-free approaches.
It's an easy fix since you can replace passwords with other authentication methods like push authentication. Then, when a user replies to a push notification, the login on the second device is done automatically.
Another great approach is adaptive authentication, which considers device type, location, and IP address. These approaches are only possible through biometric data such as fingerprint or face recognition. If you can save your users the hassle of always having to input their password, they will love your marketplace for it.
6. Instant Payment
Everyone loves to get paid. But when it takes forever for your users to get the money in their bank account, it messes with their overall experience. They could be influencers, sellers, affiliates, or content creators.
Instantly paying your marketplace users will give them that sharp dopamine boost, making them feel more attached to your platform. So here's the problem: what if you have to pay over 100 users? How do you do it?
Without an automated payout system in place, you'll have to pay them one by one and double-check to ensure there are no errors. But you'll burn out quickly if you dare follow this route.
That is why most marketplaces in Sweden use Gigapay's automated payment system, like Ksting, Memmo, TaskRunner, and so many others. As a result, they saved time and effort while also declaring taxes and social benefits.
Awesome, huh?
You can integrate this payout system today into your platform by booking a demo, and we'll get in touch with you shortly. It's super easy :)
