Mobile Marketplace Redesign
Boosting subscriber growth through better brand discovery
Sway was a mobile marketplace for exclusive brand offers designed to connect brands with subscribers through curated content and promotions. While potential partners liked the idea, the platform wasn’t attracting enough subscribers fast enough to clearly demonstrate value, prompting the team to rethink how subscribers discovered and benefited from Sway.
Problem
Limited brand discovery led to a generic, low-relevance experience that failed to keep subscribers engaged.
Focus
Make brand discovery feel relevant, personal, and worth returning to.
Result
The prototype helped power sales and investor pitches by showcasing a marketplace with interest-driven discovery & patterns that supported repeat visits.
Higher chance of subscriber engagement & return with favoriting, sharing, and interest tags
Enhanced brand discovery & visibility with Discovery & Brand pages
Company
TapOnIt, an SMS marketing startup
Role
Solo Product Designer
Team
CEO, Eng (2), Sales (2), Support (3), Marketing (2)
Timeline
3 months
Browsing felt generic with limited ways to engage and discover brands
Sway was meant to connect brands and subscribers, but fell short in multiple ways.
Users had difficulty…
● Finding brands that matched their interests
● Understanding why a brand was relevant to them
● Returning to explore new content
Research showed that photos, reviews, and relevant content largely shape how people shop
I ran a survey to learn more about people's shopping habits and expectations when browsing online marketplaces.
I noticed a few patterns from the responses:
01
People relied mostly on photos & reviews when deciding to make a purchase.
02
People often browse without purchasing, and want easy ways to revisit their interests.
03
Users respond better to relevant content than to a bunch of generic options.
From here, I focused on improving the layout, capturing user interests, and helping brands reach the right audience
Why this mattered:
● Trust was required to keep users exploring long enough to create engagement
● Sway needed repeat visits to grow subscriber value over time, not just one-time browsing
● A more relevant experience would support stronger engagement, retention, and audience growth for partners
With input from the team, I prioritized high-impact features that would drive engagement and repeat visits
With a clear understanding of user needs and business goals, I aligned stakeholders around what mattered most for an early version of Sway. We focused on features that would drive engagement and subscriber growth without overcomplicating the experience.
The matrix helped scope the MVP and determine which features shipped first and which ones waited.
Early screens explored how users might browse offers, evaluate brands, and return over time.
A few key decisions made browsing simpler and more engaging
01
Fewer Feedback Interruptions
The less popups, the better. Instead, embedded prompts would encourage subscribers to add preferences without breaking their flow.
02
Share Individual Brands
Added an extra level of sharing to support organic growth in subscriber count and in specific brands they liked.
03
Simplified Offer Cards
Removed redundant titles and subtext to keep offers scannable.
04
Dedicated Discovery Page
Separated exploration from the homepage to prevent overload and to account for future growth as we gained partners.
Through internal testing with the team, I fleshed out the details to get to a polished prototype that Sales and our CEO could use during product discussions.
The prototype helped demonstrate Sway’s value to potential brand partners
I delivered a high-fidelity prototype that was used in sales calls and investor pitches.
● Helped reposition Sway from a deal site to a brand discovery platform through personalized feeds and brand pages
● Defined KPIs: growth in new subscriber signups and unique click-throughs from campaign texts, indicators of higher engagement and brand visibility
Brand pages build trust by combining a brand's mission, products, and offers all in one place.
Interest selection helps personalize Discovery to what subscribers care most about.
My work extended beyond the main platform
I partnered with the Marketing team to build the pre-launch website and create landing pages that introduced the product and encouraged early interest. This helped keep the experience consistent from the first customer touchpoint through the product itself
Sway website & landing page
Next steps for added personalization
If I had continued the project, I would've:
● Ran usability tests with subscribers to validate navigation, layout changes, and especially the personalization options.
● Explored ways to customize the Discovery feed based on shopper behavior and profile interests