reduse
empowering students to resell within their community.
Role
Product Designer, UX Researcher
Timeline
May 2023 - August 2023
Project Type
Independent Project
Toolkit
Figma, Adobe Creative Suite, User Research, Market Research, User Testing
✦ AI Overview
Coming soon…
PROBLEM
why do students toss perfectly usable items?
At Cornell, it’s not uncommon for students to throw away stuff in good condition during housing transitions. What starts as a way to declutter quickly turns into waste— financially and environmentally. Many students want to save money and be sustainable, but there’s no seamless way to do both.
SOLUTION
reduse: a secondhand marketplace built for us
I designed RedUse, a mobile app that helps Cornell students buy and sell secondhand items easily and safely. It supports students with finding affordable items, decluttering their space, and facilitating an easy exchange process— all while fostering a more sustainable, interconnected college experience.
CONTEXT
setting my own timeline from start to finish
Since this was an independent project, I began by defining the project's scope and timeline. To keep the project on track, I made a detailed plan with action items for each deliverable. Throughout ideation and prototyping, I kept organized notes and wove in user feedback to keep the design grounded in real needs.
RESEARCHING
what students told me about secondhand purchases
I interviewed four Cornell students from different years and housing situations to learn how they manage secondhand goods. I wanted to identify their pain points, needs, and motivations in the following processes:
1. how do users deal with items they no longer want or use?
2. how do users currently buy secondhand items?
I created an affinity diagram where I grouped similar responses together. I noticed the following shared experiences and feelings from students:
1. students feel exploited and frustrated by fees.
"[Existing secondhand marketplace apps] are taking money from both the buyer and seller- it's a lose-lose situation."
2. concerns about scams creates hesitation in transactions.
"I'm always afraid of getting scammed or receiving something that's not what I paid for."
3. students prefer peer transactions for the perceived safety and personal connection.
"I like knowing who the other person is... I'm not scared of Cornell students."
4. disorganized listings create an overwhelming search experience.
"It's so hard to find what I need- it's like digging through the discarded laundry pile to find my lost sock."
USER PERSONAS
I distilled the interviews into two core personas—one focused on buying, the other on selling—to keep my designs anchored in real motivations and frustrations.
ADAPTING PRODUCT GOALS
empowering users through trustworthy transactions
A common concern was sharing payment info. As one user put it, “I don’t want my credit card info in a student-made app.” So I pivoted—RedUse doesn’t handle transactions, or operate like a typical shopping platform. Instead, it helps students coordinate safe, in-person meetups.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
learning from the market (and its gaps)
To understand current approaches to exchanging secondhand items, I looked into existing reselling applications and peer-to-peer platforms.
key takeaways
• What works: in-app messaging and user review systems
• Best existing platform: The differing values of each platform appeal to different demographics— Facebook Marketplace aligns best with college students, but has limitations including 1) primarily reaching Facebook users and 2) lacking a clear seller review system.
• What’s missing: platforms catering specifically to college students and community-building aspects
This helped me define what RedUse could do better: be community-first and college-specific.
IDEATION
choosing features that support the vision
After brainstorming potential solutions and evaluating their feasibility, I matched the following key features with the goals I hoped to achieve:
from sketches to screens
I sketched out wireframes to consolidate my ideas and flesh out visions for the app.
ITERATIONS AND MORE ITERATIONS
home page
I implemented the tabs and search on top. The tab design allows users to navigate between different sections of content with a simple horizontal swipe, creating a seamless browsing experience. Placing a search bar on the top also streamlines the searching process for users who open the app looking for a particular item.
request posts
I turned the post's interaction options (commenting, initiating one-on-one chats, and saving the post) into buttons. I chose the fourth iteration, which 1) uses thin borders to indicate interactive buttons, 2) labels "Start Chat" since new users would be unfamiliar with icon meanings and 3) emphasizes the start chat button by positioning it separately, as it's the most essential action to initiate transactions.
listing posts
I selected the vertically aligned listing layout because of its visual clarity and organized appearance. After this choice, I made several additional UI improvements:
1. Increased white space to give the design more visual breathing room.
2. Added a thin border around each post to maintain cohesion with other app components.
3. Darkened the image gradient to create greater visual contrast and ensure readability.
USER TESTING
designs shaped by real people
After building mid-fidelity prototypes, I tested them with potential users. I kept it casual— I walked them through tasks, encouraged thinking aloud, and asked follow-ups. Then, I revised my designs based on what didn’t land.
more listing information
Users wanted to gauge the popularity of an item through the number of likes on an item.
To assess seller reliability, they had to navigate to a seller’s profile for reviews, so I added seller ratings directly into the listing.
They expressed interest in knowing how fresh a listing was, so I added a timestamp.
streamlined chat navigation
Users felt that finding specific conversations would be a pain point. Initially, I ideated two solutions: sorted chats and a search bar. After testing both, it became clear that users found the sorted chats confusing while the search was intuitive and familiar because of similarity to iMessages, so I decided to implement the search bar.
improved profile hierarchy
improved profile hierarchy when viewing others
I noticed users struggling to access functions like their likes, drafts, saved items, and follow other profiles, which were tucked away in dropdown menus or settings pages. To address this, I brought these frequently used features to the main profile page, making them immediately accessible.
FINAL PROTOTYPES
onboarding
To simplify the user experience, I added an introduction that provides context to new users.
searching for items
A dedicated page for exploring items.
A trade-off when designing the category cover images was displaying actual listings over icons with a cohesive UI. This decision was made because if a displayed item piques user interest, they will be incentivized to explore that category.
To allow users to quickly access their saved items, I placed a "Saved" button in the upper right.
arranging exchanges in chat
Transaction confirmations are integrated in messages through a "Confirm" pop-up.
While not visible in this current prototype, I'd add a loading animation after users send a confirmation message. This provides visual feedback that the request has been received and is being processed. A future goal of mine is learning how to create loading animations, making prototypes even more realistic and user-friendly.
navigating your profile
View your reviews, drafts, likes, and saved.
I implemented tabbed navigation within the Reviews and Saved sections, so users can efficiently toggle through organized categories.
THINKING AHEAD
there's more beyond the interface.
Although the scope of this project is limited by its conceptual nature, I can’t help but think about what’s next.
encouraging more reviews
Right now, users can leave reviews in the chat tab after a transaction, but not everyone would. I considered the following solutions:
Of course, I'd need to conduct further research to determine the most effective approach.
growing the reduse community
Like any marketplace app, having plenty of users is essential to keep an influx of listings and requests. To expand the user base, I’d experiment with:
Shareable links to listings that could increase exposure outside the app, potentially drawing in new users
Social media marketing, particularly Instagram, to 1) raise awareness around sustainability and affordability concerns and 2) highlight stories from real users, which would help establish the app’s relevance and credibility.
THINKING BACK
what i learned and what i'd improve…
This personal project has taught me a lot— how to pace a solo timeline by breaking down large goals into actionable tasks, how to stay rooted in user feedback, and how to juggle multiple roles of researching, designing, and organizing.
While I found qualitative feedback insightful, in the future, I would gather quantitative data as well. Having users rate the app's usability or satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10 would provide concrete data for fine-tuning designs and understanding their impact. To measure the success of my design goals, I'd also use surveys to collect quantifiable metrics.
And despite its apparent obviousness, I'd add safety reminders about not sharing living locations for transactions, as it's easy to forget basic precautions in the excitement of a deal. A few strategic warnings would help ensure community safety.
More than anything, this reminded me why I love UX: every design decision is a chance to listen better, build smarter, and create something people actually want to use.
Thanks for reading—hope you enjoyed tagging along :)
