5 Day UX Challenge

Scenario: As a UX/UI designer at eBay, I was tasked with solving a critical business problem in the Seller Portal — the central hub where business sellers access promotions and key performance information.

The Issue: Contact data from sellers (phone numbers, email addresses, CRM roles) is frequently outdated because sellers forget to update their information. This creates significant problems for Account Managers trying to reach sellers and maintain accurate customer relationship data.

Business Objective: Increase the number of sellers who actively update and confirm their contact information, improving data quality and enabling better seller support.

Research Phase: Conducted user surveys with 48 participants and seller interviews to understand pain points. Discovered that sellers face over-aggressive reminders, technical glitches during updates, poor navigation to contact settings, and vague error messages.

Key Findings: The top 3 triggers for updating contact info are: (1) clear incentives/rewards like coupons or badges, (2) urgency or consequences like account restrictions, and (3) purposeful communication with simple update flows. 70% of sellers connect updated contact info with trust and credibility.

Competitive Benchmarking: Analyzed Amazon Seller Central, Etsy, Shopify, and Walmart to understand industry best practices for seller data verification and update workflows.

Design Solutions: Created 6 different prototype scenarios exploring: one-stop update hubs, rewards & badges, visible alerts & progress indicators, guided update flows, smart reminders, and listing-integrated update prompts.

Usability Testing: Tested with 6 participants, revealing critical insights: users prefer updating contact info WHILE adding products (not separately), progress indicators (like "75% complete") are highly motivating, and visual alerts need to be more distinct to stand out in the interface.

Critical Design Shift: Initial approach used a blocking modal that prevented product listing. Refined approach allows users to add products freely, with contact verification required before publishing — reducing friction while maintaining compliance.

After building the prototype, a heuristic evaluation was conducted to identify usability issues across Nielsen's 10 heuristics. Key findings were documented and scored by severity.

Scenarios were then prioritized based on user impact and business value:

Multiple factors drive action: No single incentive works in isolation. Effective solutions combine rewards, progress indicators, clear communication, and convenience to motivate seller behavior.

Embed in natural workflows: The most successful approach integrated contact updates into the product listing flow rather than treating it as a separate task. This reduced friction while maintaining compliance requirements.

Clarity builds trust: Users respond better to education about "why" updates matter (trust, compliance, better support) than to threats or alarmist warnings.

Progress is motivating: Visual progress indicators (like "75% complete" cards) were more motivating than coupons alone. Showing sellers how close they are to completion drives action.

Community value for cross-border sellers: International sellers particularly value knowledge-sharing communities, webinars, and peer networks over discounts alone.

Prioritization through testing: Ranking the 6 prototype scenarios by task completion rates, motivation levels, time to completion, and user satisfaction helped identify Scenario 2 as the highest-priority recommendation.