Gumtree Category Homepages
I created scalable designs for 4 main vertical categories, consolidating multiple design systems, enabling >$100k in commercial partnerships.
The Project
Gumtree Australia’s strategy mid 2023 was focusing on key categories:
Pets
Jobs
Cars
Horizontal (all the rest eg. furniture).
Our long term goal was to rebuild the entire browsing experience from the ground up, but in the meantime we needed a homepage for each of these categories, prioritising:
A lean interim solution built in Wordpress, consolidating design debt.
Understanding the category specific experience & user journeys.
Scalability between categories (eg. reusable components with minimal code changes).
Revenue opportunities, enabling sponsors for each category (this part was time critical).
the Before:
The “Pets” category previously defaulted to a ‘search results’ view:
“Cars” and “Jobs” had existing home pages, but with no design consistency and a confusing search experience.
The Gumtree home page design needed a revamp too, but this wasn’t in scope, so:
“HMW uplift & the UI for new vertical homepages, without straying too far from the existing design style?”
After:
Pets homepage design, to responsive breakpoints
Simplified search bar experience & UI.
Carousels of cards linking to live ads.
Sub-category browsing.
Visual content cards.
My Role
Worked closely with PMs for each vertical, understanding journeys and JTBD.
Created handovers for external dev agency, supervising QA during build.
Partnered with marketing, creating mockups and pitches, showing value of page to sponsors.
Consulting ads team for display ad constraints & reqs.
Key Skills
Stakeholder relationship building - intensive collaboration where making everyone feel heard and understanding requirements was vital.
Prioritisation amidst high-pressure deadlines.
User advocacy during revenue intensive period.
Working with complex ambiguity, balancing future design direction & user delight with pragmatism.
Results
Enabling brand sponsorships in excess of AU $100k
Handover of a lean interim design system, fit for purpose amidst design debt and ambiguity.
Visibility of the value of design, boosting org wide morale with first UI launch in years.
Gumtree’s first look at our new design direction, simplifying complex UI’s.
The Process
We worked on one vertical category at a time, starting with Pets.
1. Kickoff
Kickoff workshop for each category, requirements gathering from stakeholders.
2. Universal Components & design system
Determining universal components for all categories: headers, the search bar, listings cards, and column layout;
Running workshops to design an MVP of each of these.
Creating a simplified design system handover for external dev agency.
3. Wireframing
Wireframing all remaining components, checking scalability with other vertical categories.
4. Review & Handover
Building all components to high-fidelity, Dev handover & QA with remote team.
5. Content Design
Creating additional elements:
Header images.
Marketing content cards.
Advertising banners.
